FROM  THE  CRUSADES  TO  THE 
FRENCH   REVOLUTION 


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LA  TREMOILLE  FAMILY 


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BOSTON     AND     NEW     YORK 

HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

1914 


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PREFACE 

Without  exaggeration  it  may  be  said  that  in  the 
history  of  France  few  families,  if  any,  have  played 
a  more  persistently  prominent  part  than  the  house  of 
La  Tremoille.-^  For  five  centuries,  from  the  Crusades  to 
the  Revolution,  the  La  Tremoille  stock  has  never  failed 
to  produce  men  of  mark,  and  women  too.  Whether 
for  good  or  for  evil  La  Tremoilles  have  stamped  their 
personalities  on  those  great  movements  which  have 
built  up  modern  France :  on  the  Crusades,  on  the 
Hundred  Years  War,  on  the  Italian  campaigns,  on  the 
religious  strife  which  followed  the  Reformation,  on  the 
Fronde,  and,  during  the  Revolution,  on  the  death  struggle 
of  that  ancien  regime  with  which  they  had  been  so 
intimately  associated. 

Outside  France,  too,  in  the  affairs  of  England  and  of 


The  Author  regrets  the  oversight  by  which  there  was 
omitted  from  the  preface  the  expression  of  her  gratitude 
to  the  late  M.  Honors  Champion  and  M.  Edouard 
Champion  for  many  kind  services  rendered  to  her  during 
the  progress  of  this  book,  and  for  their  permission  to 
reproduce  certain  illustrations  in  volumep  published  by 
them. 


vi  PREFACE 

one  chapter  in  the  history  of  other  states.  Such  an 
undertaking  the  hmits  of  the  present  volume  forbid. 
My  readers  must  brook  abridgment. 

The  persistent  dominance  of  the  La  Tremoille  hne  the 
modern  eugenist  will  ascribe  to  the  care  of  its  members 
always  to  choose  their  consorts  from  the  most  vigorous 
famines  of  the  day — Montmorency,  Nassau,  Arragon, 
Stanley,  Conde,  Hesse  Cassel,  Sobieski — to  mention  only 
a  few  of  the  influential  houses  to  which  they  were  aUied. 
But  the  La  Tremoilles  have  not  always  been  equally 
powerful.  Their  wealth  and  influence  attained  its  zenith 
towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  during  the  life- 
time of  Claude,  the  second  Duke.  Then  with  their  1,700 
vassals,  a  larger  number  than  were  included  in  any  other 
French  fief,  the  heads  of  this  house  were  nothing  more  or 
less  than  kinglets  of  western  France.  At  Laval  and  at 
Thouars,  their  Breton  and  Poitevin  capitals,  they  kept 
truly  royal  state.  On  the  banks  of  the  little  river  Thouet 
they  raised  a  princely  pile  ^  which  cast  into  insignificance 
such  royal  residences  as  Marly  and  Chenonceaux.  Had 
any  La  Tremoille  a  grievance  against  the  Crown,  which  not 
infrequently  happened,  in  a  very  short  time  he  could  equip 
and  put  into  the  field  an  army  of  several  hundred  men. 

But,  towards  the  middle  of  the  following  century,  the 
tide  of  their  success  changed  and  their  fortunes  began  to 
ebb.  In  the  civil  war  of  the  Fronde,  that  last  great  struggle 
of  the  French  nobility  against  the  centralised  government 
of  Richelieu  and  Mazarin,  a  government  intended  to  thwart 
the  aspirations  of  the  nobles  and  to  degrade  kinglets  into 
courtiers.  La  Tremoille  wealth,  freely  expended  on  the  side 
of  the  nobility,  dwindled,  estates  grew  encumbered  and 
their  owners  burdened  with  debt. 

1  Still  standing  to-day  and  used  as  a  prison.     See  illustration. 


PREFACE  vii 

Henceforth  the  Dukes  of  La  Tremoille  found  it 
impossible  to  keep  up  the  double  state  of  a  hotel  in  Paris 
and  a  court  in  the  west.  They  were  now  compelled  to 
choose  between  the  prestige  of  a  great  feudal  lord  in  the 
provinces  and  the  glamour  of  a  grandee  at  court ;  they 
elected  the  latter,  and  they  began  to  reside  more  and 
more  at  Paris.  Poitevins  and  Bretons  came  to  know 
them  no  more.  Thus,  on  the  La  Tremoille  estates,  as 
throughout  the  rest  of  France,  there  grew  up  that 
disastrous  system  of  absenteeism,  which  caused  the  feudal 
yoke  so  to  chafe  the  necks  of  its  wearers  that  ultimately, 
with  one  great  throb  of  agony,  they  cast  it  off. 

As  long  as  the  Dukes  of  La  Tremoille  lived  amongst 
their  vassals,  taking  a  personal  interest  in  their  concerns, 
feudal  burdens,  though  heavy,  were  bearable.  At  the 
bidding  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  living  in  their  midst 
the  people  of  Thouars  had  been  content  to  slave,  to  give 
their  labour,  as  well  as  their  money,  for  the  building  of 
that  huge  castle  which  still  dominates  their  town.  But 
when  their  princes  left  them  to  return  only  at  rare 
intervals,  and  then  without  ceremony  or  even  incognito, 
when  they  ceased  to  hold  in  those  lordly  halls  the  annual 
gatherings  of  their  numerous  vassals,  when  the  courts  of 
Thouars  ceased  to  resound  beneath  the  armed  feet  of 
goodly  companies  assembling  to  be  led  to  battle  by  their 
chief,  when  corvees  had  to  be  rendered  and  feudal  dues  paid 
to  an  absent  and  unknown  lord,  then  the  gorges  of  sturdy 
Bretons  and  Poitevins  rose  against  the  injustice  of  the 
ancien  regime  ;  Thouars  became  one  of  the  first  pro- 
vincial cities  to  set  up  a  Jacobite  club,  and  soon  the  broad 
lands  of  the  La  Tremoilles  were  seized  by  the  Government 
of  the  Revolution. 

But  it  is  important  to  remark  that  when  the  state  took 


viii  PREFACE 

possession  of  the  La  Tremoille  property,  and  the  Jacobins 
of  Thouars  could  range  at  will  through  the  lofty  halL  of 
the  castle  on  the  Thouet,  it  was  only  on  the  property  of 
the  Duke  of  that  day  that  they  wreaked  their  vengeance. 
The  portraits  of  hia  ancestors,  with  one  exception,^  they 
venerated  and  even  carried  off  to  their  own  homes  in 
order  to  save  them  from  desecration  by  strangers. 

While  Sans-CuloUes  were  profaning  the  homes  of  his 
ancestors,  the  Due  de  La  Tremoille,  Charles  Bretagne, 
was  reduced  to  wandering  over  the  face  of  Europe  serving 
in  foreign  armies  against  his  republican  countrymen. 
His  eldest  brother,  leading  the  forlorn  hope  of  the  ancien 
regime  in  La  Vendee,  was  taken,  and  by  a  Republican 
court  martial  condemned  to  die  beneath  the  walls  of  his 
own  castle  of  Laval.  A  few  months  later  another  brother 
was  guillotined  at  Paris. 

After  the  Revolution  turmoil  had  subsided,  the  late 
Duke,  Louis  Charles  de  La  Tremoille,  devoted  many  years 
to  making  known  the  history  of  his  illustrious  family. 
And  it  is  chiefly  from  the  La  Tremoille  archives  as  pub- 
Hshed  by  Duke  Louis  that  the  story  told  in  this  book  has 
been  derived. 

The  history  of  these  archives  is  in  itself  a  romance. 
When  in  the  seventeenth  century  Marie  de  la  Tour 
d' Auvergne  and  her  husband,  Duke  Henry  de  La  Tremoille, 
built  their  great  chateau  on  the  Thouet,  they  constructed 
in  one  of  its  towers  a  strong  room  with  a  heavy  iron  door, 
and  here  they  placed  the  family  records  which  had 
accumulated  through  the  ages.  In  the  previous  genera- 
tion at  Duke  Claude's  request  these  documents  had  been 
classified  and  arranged  by  two  eminent  archivists  of  the 
day,  the  brothers  Scevole  and  Louis  de  Sainte-Marthe. 

^  That  of  Marie  de  la  Tour  d'Auvergne.     See  post,  200. 


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PREFACE 


IX 


These  historians  composed  a  summary  of  their  researches, 
which,  after  their  death,  was  pubHshed  by  their  son  and 
nephew,  Pierre  Scevole  de  Sainte-Marthe.  This,^  the 
earhest  known  history  of  the  La  Tremoilles,  appeared  in 
1668. 

For  a  century  and  more  the  La  Tremoille  archives 
rested  in  peace  in  the  muniment  room  of  Thouars.  Then 
the  Revolution  broke  out  and  the  Poitevin  town  became 
one  of  the  centres  of  the  war  waged  in  the  west  by  the 
courageous  supporters  of  monarchy.  More  than  once  the 
chateau  had  to  stand  a  siege,  and  more  than  once  it 
narrowly  escaped  being  burnt  to  the  ground.  But 
through  all  these  dangers,  though  riddled  with  bullets,  the 
iron  door  kept  out  the  besiegers  and  the  archives  remained 
intact. 

The  time  came,  however,  when  the  La  Tremoilles, 
having  emigrated,  their  chateau,  as  we  have  said,  was 
seized  by  the  Revolution  Government.  Then  the  muni- 
ment room  became  public  property.  Then  the  battered 
iron  door  was  left  to  swing  on  its  hinges,  the  chests  were 
rifled  and  their  contents  exposed  to  the  ravages  of  auto- 
graph hunters,  of  rats  and  of  damp,  while  the  finest  pieces 
of  parchment  the  good  wives  of  Thouars  eagerly  appro- 
priated to  serve  as  covers  for  their  jam  pots.  So,  when 
Revolution  wrath  had  subsided  and  Duke  Charles  asked 
Napoleon's  Government  to  restore  his  family  records,  the 
steward  sent  down  to  Thouars  to  examine  them,  found 
the  contents  of  two  chests,  such  as  remained  of  them, 
strewn  like  so  many  scraps  of  waste  paper  on  the  floor  of 
the  muniment  room.  But  the  papers  in  the  four  remain- 
ing chests  appear  to  have  been  untouched,  and  they  con- 
tained enough  material  for  the  composition  of  a  connected 

^  "  Histoire  G6n6alogique  de  la  Maison  de  Tr6moille." 


X  PREFACE 

family  history.  Some  twenty  years  later,  when  in  1830 
Duke  Charles  took  for  his  third  wife  the  Comtesse  de 
Serrant,  these  documents,  securely  packed  in  eighty  cases, 
were  removed  to  the  chateau  of  Serrant,  where  most  of 
them  remain  to  this  day. 

Nevertheless,  the  true  value  of  these  records  was  not 
rightly  estimated  until  the  middle  of  the  last  century, 
when  M.  Paul  Marchegay,  archivist,  of  Maine-et-Loire,  in 
search  of  letters  from  Madame  de  Sevigne  to  a  La  Tre- 
moille  princess,^  obtained  permission  to  examine  them. 
Of  the  letters  he  sought  not  one  did  M.  Marchegay  dis- 
cover,^ but  he  found  others  equally  interesting,  written  by 
Louise  de  CoHgny,  sister  of  the  famous  Admiral  and  third 
wife  of  WiUiam  the  Silent,  to  her  step-daughter,  Charlotte 
Brabantine,  who  had  married  Duke  Claude  de  La  Tre- 
moille.  These,  with  other  valuable  letters  of  the  same 
period,  M.  Marchegay  pubHshed  in  three  volumes.^ 

Following  in  M.  Marchegay's  footsteps  and  with  his 
assistance  Duke  Louis  de  La  Tremoille  undertook  for 
publication  a  systematic  arrangement  of  the  family 
archives.  In  1877,  there  appeared  for  private  circulation 
a  fine  folio,  the  "  Chartier  de  Thouars,"  a  copy  of  which  the 
Duke  presented  to  the  British  Museum.  Then  between 
1890  and  1896  he  gave  to  the  pubhc  five  handsome  volumes 
entitled  "  Les  La  Tremoille  pendant  cinq  siecles.*' 

From  these  and  other  minor  publications  it  will  be  seen 


1  See  post,  203  et  seq. 

2  They  were  found  elsewhere  and  inserted  by  M.  Monmerqu6  in  his 
edition  of  Madame  de  Sevigne's  letters. 

3  "  Lettres  de  Louise  de  Coligny  .  .  .  a  .  .  .  Charlotte  Brabantine 
de  Nassau,  Duchesse  de  La  Tremoille,"  1872  ;  "  Lettres  d'Elisabeth  de 
Nassau,  Duchesse  de  Bouillon,  a  sa  soeur  Charlotte  Brabantine  de 
Nassau,  Duchesse  de  La  Tremoille,"  1875  ;  "  Correspondance  de  Louise 
de  Coligny  recueillie  par  P.  Marchegay,"  1887.  See  also  by  the  same 
author,  "  Recherches  historiques  sur  le  d^partement  de  La  Vendue," 
1859,  and  "  Cartulaires  du  Bas-Poitou,"  1877. 


PREFACE  xi 

that,  despite  many  serious  losses,  there  remained  of  the 
La  Tremoille  documents  an  invaluable  collection  including 
letters  from  kings  and  princes,  correspondence  between 
other  great  historical  personages  and,  by  no  means  the 
least  interesting  to  English  readers,  the  letters  of  that 
famous  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille,  Countess  of  Derby, 
that  Lady  of  Lathom  whom  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  so 
admirably  depicted  in  "  Peveril  of  the  Peak." 

For  four  centuries  at  least,  from  Froissart  downwards, 
French  chronicles,  memoirs  and  histories  abound  in 
references  to  the  members  of  this  house. 

The  earliest  biography  of  a  La  Tremoille  was  written 
in  the  sixteenth  century  by  Jean  Bouchet,  a  Poitiers 
lawyer,  and  a  retainer  of  the  great  Count  Louis  de  La 
Tremoille.-^  In  terms  of  extravagant  adulation  Bouchet 
tells  the  story  of  his  master's  adventurous  career  and  of 
the  Italian  wars  in  which  he  commanded  the  armies  of 
three  successive  French  Kings. 

The  most  recent  biography  of  a  La  Tremoille  is  a 
volume  by  Edouard  Barthelemy,  telling  the  tragic  story 
of  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille,  Princesse  de  Conde,  who  was 
accused  of  poisoning  her  huiband.  Of  that  other  and 
later  Charlotte,  the  Lady  of  Lathom,  there  are  two 
excellent  biographies,  one  in  EngHsh  by  Guizct's  daughter, 
Madame  de  Witt,  and  another  more  recent,  in  French,  by 
Leon  Marlet.^  No  less  than  four  members  of  the  family 
have  written  their  own  memoirs.  The  letters  of  several 
others  have  been  published.  For  example,  the  corre- 
spondence of  his  illustrious  kinswoman,  the  Princesse  des 
Ursins,  on  the  question  of  the  Spanish  succession,  the  Due 

1  This  life  is  included  in  Michaud  and  Poujoulat's  collection  of  French 
memoirs,  Series  I.,  Vol.  IV. 

2  A  third,  by  Miss  Rowsell,  contains  nothing  which  is  not  to  be  found 
in  Madame  de  Witt's  book  save  several  inaccuracies. 


xii  PREFACE 

de  La  Tremoille  has  published  in  no  less  than  six  magnifi- 
cent quarto  volumes.  All  these  sources  I  have  con- 
scientiously consulted,  and  detailed  references  to  them 
will  be  found  in  the  following  pages. 

It  now  only  remains  for  me  to  express  my  thanks  to 
those  who  by  their  kindness  have  facilitated  the  illustra- 
tion of  this  book :  to  Madame  la  Duchesse  Douairiere  de 
La  Tremoille  for  her  gracious  permission  to  reproduce 
pictures  and  portraits  contained  in  the  publications  of 
the  late  Due  de  La  Tremoille  ;  to  Mrs.  Aubrey  Le  Blond, 
herself  a  descendant  of  a  Princesse  de  La  Tremoille,  for 
generously  placing  her  portrait  album  at  my  disposal ; 
to  Count  Bentinck  and  Mr.  Aldenburg  Bentinck  for  their 
permission  to  reproduce  portraits  in  their  possession  ;  to 
Miss  Evelyn  Glover,  for  an  excellent  photograph  of  the 
Castle  at  Vitre;  and  to  Miss  Dorothy  McDougall  for 
supplying  me  with  an  interesting  collection  of  pictures  of 
Poitou. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAP. 


PAGE 


Preface    v 


I.    La  Tremoilles  in  the  Crusades  and  the  English 

Wars.     1040 — 1397 i 

II.     Georges  DE  La  Tremoille.     1382  (?) — 1446.         .  16 

III.  Two  Loyal  Servants  of  King  Louis  XI.          .  42 

IV.  La  Tremoilles  in  the  Italian  Wars         .         .  51 
V.     La  Tremoilles  in  the  Wars  of  Religion         .  92 

VI.     The  Lady  of  Lathom.     1559— 1664   .         .         .  122 

VII.    Henry  Charles  de  La  Tremoille,  a  Hero  of 

THE  Fronde.     1620— 1672        ....  173 

VIII.    La  Bonne  Tarente  and  her  Daughter,  as  they 

APPEAR  in  the  Letters  of  Mme.  de  S^vigne  .  203 

IX.     "A   Lieutenant   of   Mme.  de   Maintenon,"  La 

Princesse  des  Ursins.     1642  (?) — 1722     .         .  213 

X.  The  Princesse  de  Talmond,  Prince  Charlie's 
Egeria,  and  other  La  Tremoilles  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century     .         .         .         .         •257 

XI.    The  Family  During  the  Revolution.  1764—1839  273 

Index ,  3^7 


xvi  LIST    OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

TO  PACE 
PAGE 

James  Stanley,  Earl  of  Derby,  Husband  of  Charlotte 

DE  La  Tr^moille  (from  a  picture  by  Vandyke)     ,         .136 
Charlotte  de  La  Tr^moille,  Countess  of  Derby,  with 
HER  Husband  and  their  Daughter  Catherine  (from 
a  picture  by  Vandyke)        .         .         .         .         .         .154 

Henry  de  La  Tri^moille,  Due  de  Thouars  .         .174 

Henry  Charles  de  La  Tr:6moille,  Prince  de  Tarente   .     186 
Marie    de    La    Tour    d'Auvergne,    Duchesse    de    La 

Tr^moille  et  de  Thouars     .....     200 

The  La  Tr^moille  Chateau  at  Vitr^.         .         .         .     204 

Charlotte    Am:6lie    de    La    Tr:^moille,    Princess    of 

Altenburg     ........     206 

Count  Griffenfeld      .......     208 

Francois  de  La  Tri^moille,  Marquis  de  Noirmoustier   .     214 
Marie  Anne  de  La  Tr]6moille,  Princesse  des  Ursins     .     224 
Madeleine  de  La  Fayette,  Duchesse  de  La  Tr^moille, 
and  her  Son,  Armand  Ren]^,  Due  de  La  Tr^moille 
(from  a  picture  attributed  to  fervas)      ....     260 

Facade  of  the  Hotel  de  La  Tr^moille  at  Paris       .     274 
Marie  Antoinette  after  the   King's  Death  (from  a 
portrait  drawn  in  the  Temple  and  presented  to  the  Princesse 
de  Tarente)       ........     282 

Emmanuelle  de  Chatillon,  Princesse  de  Tarente  .  292 
Antoine  Philippe,  Prince  de  Talmond  .  .  .  298 
The  Chateau  of  Serrant,  Residence  of  the  present 

Due  DE  La  Triemoille  .         .         .         .         .         .314 


FROM  THE  CRUSADES  TO  THE 
^FPvENCH    REVOLUTION 


CHAPTER  I 

LA  TREMOILLES  IN  THE  CRUSADES  AND  THE  ENGLISH  WARS. 

1040— 1397 

There  is  nothing  to  especially  distinguish  the  small 
market  town  of  La  Tremoille,  in  Poitou,  from  hundreds 
of  other  agricultural  centres  scattered  here  and  there 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  France.  The  little 
river  Benaize,  on  which  La  Tremoille  stands,  is  spanned 
by  the  usual  solid  stone  bridge.  From  the  bridge  end 
there  rambles  up  aimlessly  into  the  country-side  the 
usual  Grand'  Rue,  with  its  side  paths  of  irregular  paving 
stones  and  its  rough  cast,  slate-roofed  houses,  many  with 
shop  fronts,  and  generally  of  two  stories,  broken  occa- 
sionally by  a  low  gable  end  or  the  addition  of  a  third  floor. 

This  is  the  little  town  which  gave  its  name  to,  or 
received  its  name  from,  the  La  Tremoilles,  of  whom  one, 
Pierre  de  La  Tremoille,  living  in  1040,  is  the  earliest 
known  representative.  But  in  days  yet  more  remote,  a 
lordship  of  La  Tremoille  formed  part  of  the  domain  of  the 
Counts  of  Poitou,  and  eventually  became  a  separate  fief 
held  by  younger  members  of  the  Count's  family. 

Of  these  early  Sieurs  de  La  Tremoille,  little  is  known, 
save  that  from  the  days  of  Piierre  onwards,  they  grew 
in  wealth,  dignity,  and  dominions.  Later  from  simple 
lords  or  seigneurs  they  rose   to  be  counts,  then  dukes, 

C.R.  B 


c . •• •      • 


A  •  :-•  't  > :  '..*  ••:  i  F'mU.  THE  CRUSADES 

then  princes,  always,  as  we  have  said,  allying  themselves 
with  great  houses,  notably  in  the  sixteenth  century  with 
that  of  Arragon,  through  which  they  assumed  the  title  of 
Princes  of  Taranto,  and  claimed  a  right  to  the  crown  of 
Naples,  enjoying  at  the  French  court  for  nearly  loo  years 
privileges  only  accorded  to  foreign  princes. 

Down  through  all  the  ages  of  the  family  history  the 
La  Tremoille  women  have  ever  occupied  a  position  of 
unusual  honour.  While  the  descent  of  the  French 
Monarchy  was  subject  to  the  restrictions  of  the  Salic  Law, 
not  so  the  Duchy  of  La  Tremoille,  which,  in  the  event  of 
the  failure  of  male  heirs,^  was  held  capable  of  descending 
through  the  female  line.  La  Tremoille  princesses,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  attained  to  the  highest  of  court 
honours,  that  of  "  having  the  tabouret,"  as  it  was  called, 
which  meant  that  from  the  tender  age  of  seven  a  princess 
of  this  house  might  in  her  sovereign's  presence  remain 
proudly  seated  on  a  folding  chair  without  arms  or  back, 
called  a  Tabouret. 

Of  the  earliest  La  Tremoilles  we  know  the  bare  fact 
that  they  took  part  in  the  Crusades  ;  that  Guy  L  accom- 
panied Godefroi  de  Bouillon  to  the  Holy  Land  in  1096  ; 
that  Guy's  son,  Guillaume  IL,  went  with  Louis  VH.  on 
the  second  Crusade,  in  1147 ;  and  that  Thibaud  or 
Imbaud,  with  his  three  sons,  in  1248,  followed  St.  Louis 
on  his  disastrous  African  expedition.  But  of  Thibaud 
we  know  also  that  in  the  narrow  streets  of  an  African 
town,  Mansourah,  whither  the  vanguard  of  the  Crusaders 
had  been  led  by  the  rash  zeal  of  the  Comte  d'Artois,  the 
King's  brother,  he  and  his  sons,  with  the  flower  of  French 
chivalry,  assailed  by  the  Saracens  with  "  arrows  and 
pieces  of  wood,"  fell  fighting  gloriously. 

1  This  event  has  never  yet  occurred. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  3 

Not,  however,  before  the  thirteenth  century  is  it 
possible  to  piece  together  anything  hke  a  connected 
history  of  this  house.  And  the  first  La  Tremoille  of  whom 
we  possess  any  detailed  knowledge  is  Guy  VL  whose 
parents  were  Guy  V.,  Grand  Panetier^  of  France  in  1353, 
and  Radegonde  Guenaud.^ 

Born  about  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
Guy  VL,  on  his  father's  death,  entered  into  vast  posses- 
sions, broad  lands  in  such  different  parts  of  the  kingdom 
as  Poitou,  Berry,  Bourbonnais,  Burgundy,  Limousin, 
Orleannais,  Savoy  and  I'lle-de-France.  This  extensive 
domain  was  further  augmented  by  his  marriage  with 
Marie  de  Sully,  one  of  the  wealthiest  heiresses  of  her  day. 
It  was  Marie  who  brought  her  husband  that  great  castle 
of  Sully  on  the  Loire,  not  far  from  Orleans,  one  of  the 
most  princely  of  La  Tremoille  residences.  Despite  the 
renovations  and  additions  of  four  centuries,  in  its  great 
central  wing  it  still  perpetuates  the  memory  of  the  opulent 
Madame  Marie. 

When  still  young,  Sieur  Guy,  was  already  renowned  as 
un  brilliant  chevalier.  It  was  in  that  desultory  warfare 
by  which,  after  Cregy  and  Poitiers,  the  English  gradually 
lost  the  conquests  they  had  won  that  Guy  de  La  Tre- 
moille won  his  spurs.  In  1382,  in  the  Cathedral  of  St. 
Denis,  from  the  hands  of  his  sovereign,  Charles  VL,  Guy 
received  the  glorious  orifiamme  of  Clovis  and  of  Charle- 
magne, the  sacred  standard  of  France,  woven  of  costly 
silk,  called  sandal,  and  edged  about  with  tassels  of  green, 
which  he  bore  gallantly  before  his  king  into  battle 
with  the  English.     Two  years  later  Guy  was  appointed 


*  Master  of  the  King's  pantry. 

2  For  Guy's  other  children,  see  Anselme,  "  Histoire  G6n6alogique  et 
Chronologique,"  IV.,  i8i. 

B  2 


4  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

one  of  the  ambassadors  to  cross  the  Channel  and  treat  of 
peace  with  England.  There  so  deeply  did  he  impress 
the  EngHsh  as  a  gallant  knight,  that  two  years  later 
still,  Sir  Peter  Courtenay  journeyed  into  France  with  no 
object  but  to  break  a  lance  with  this  expert  warrior. 

Together  Guy  and  his  adversary  tilted  before  the  King 
and  his  court,  while  the  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  wife  of  the 
great  Philip  the  Bold,  commanded  prayers  to  be  offered 
for  the  success  of  the  French  champion.  But  King 
Charles,  hesitating  to  take  sides,  and  equally  dreading  the 
mischance  of  either  combatant,  of  his  good  vassal,  or  of 
his  trustful  guest,  after  a  few  bouts  ordered  the  lists  to  be 
closed  before  either  knight  had  won  any  vantage. 

At  such  treatment  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  Sir 
Peter  bitterly  incensed.  Only  with  rich  gifts  and  fair 
words  was  his  anger  appeased ;  but  even  these  did 
not  entirely  content  him,  for  on  the  way  home  he 
complained  bitterly  of  the  French  King's  action.  The 
numerous  heralds,  who  had  accompanied  the  knight  from 
England,  were  perhaps  better  pleased,  for  they  had 
received  between  them  from  the  King's  uncle,  the  Duke 
of  Burgundy,  no  less  a  sum  than  150  francs,  which  is  more 
than  ten  times  as  much  in  modern  money.  Meanwhile, 
the  great  Duke  PhiHp  testified  his  appreciation  of  the 
valour  and  prowess  of  his  cher  et  feal  cousin,  as  he  called 
LaTremoille,  by  appointing  him  his  executor,  and  directing 
that  on  his  death  he  should  be  interred  at  the  Duke's 
feet  in  the  Carthusian  monastery  of  Champnol-les-Dijon. 
Here  we  note  the  earliest  evidence  of  that  close  connection 
between  the  La  Tremoilles  and  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy, 
which  was  to  endure  for  more  than  a  century.^ 

1  Some  writers  describe  the  La  Tremoilles  as  of  Burgundian  origin. 
It  is  certain  that  from  very  early  times  they  held  lands  in  Burgundy. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  5 

Closely  associated  with  his  suzerain,  Duke  Philip,  was 
Guy  de  La  Tremoille  in  that  monster  expedition  against 
England,  which  was  one  of  the  greatest  wonders  and  the 
most  disastrous  failures  of  the  age.  For  like  Napoleon's 
expedition,  this  vast  host,  having  assembled  through 
many  months  on  the  coast  of  Flanders,  never  even 
succeeded  in  crossing  the  Channel. 

"  The  biggest  fleet  that  had  ever  been  seen  since  the 
creation  of  the  world,"  1,400  ships,  hired  or  purchased 
from  well  nigh  every  maritime  power  in  Europe,  Duke 
Philip,  during  the  summer  of  1386,  assembled  in  Flemish 
harbours.  Meanwhile  to  the  camp  at  Arras  there 
flocked  the  flower  of  French  chivalry,  hundreds  of  knights, 
who  lavished  on  their  accoutrement  untold  sums,  for 
which  they  looked  to  recoup  themselves  by  booty  captured 
in  England.  Covered  with  silken  tents  from  which 
floated  all  the  pomp  of  heraldry — lions,  dragons,  and 
unicorns,  destined  to  defy  the  leopards  of  England — the 
camp  at  Arras  in  its  magnificence  anticipated  the  Field 
of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  Accompanying  the  knights  was  a 
vast  host,  mustering  no  less  than  8,000  men-at-arms  and 
60,000  foot-soldiers  ;  while  for  the  feeding  of  this  great 
multitude  there  was  gathered  from  every  part  of  France 
vast  store  of  victuals — hay,  oats,  wine,  sacks  of  flour, 
barrels  of  salt  and  of  onions,  and  casks  filled  with  yolks 
of  eggs. 

But  the  crowning  glory  of  Duke  Philip's  preparations 
was  a  complete  wooden  town  with  houses,  towers  and 
palisades,  constructed  in  Breton  forests,  and  intended  to 
be  set  up  on  British  shores,  where  it  was  to  form  a  kind  of 
moveable  Calais  for  the  shelter  of  French  troops.  No 
less  than  seventy-two  vessels  were  sent  to  convey  this 
marvellous  triumph  of  mediaeval  engineering  to  Flanders. 


6  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

But  now  mischance  began  to  overtake  Duke  Philip's  scheme. 
Between  Flanders  and  Brittany,  tempests  beat  upon  the 
wooden  town,  and  shattered  it  to  pieces.  Meanwhile  the 
host  at  Arras  was  awaiting  the  coming  of  the  King  who 
was  to  command  it.  But  quarrels  at  court  and  jealousy 
of  Duke  Philip  were  delaying  the  King's  departure,  and 
the  summer  months  were  fleeting  by.  When  at  length 
he  arrived  at  Arras,  the  most  favourable  time  for 
crossing  had  passed,  autumn  had  set  in,  the  ruined 
knights  had  begun  to  return  to  their  mortgaged  demesnes, 
the  vast  host  was  dwindling  ;  then  the  equinoctial  gales 
began,  the  sea  guarded  Great  Britain. 

"  And  Ocean  'mid  his  uproar  wild 
Spoke  safety  to  his  island-child."  ^ 

Thus  vanished  Guy  de  La  Tremoille's  first  and  only 
opportunity  of  displaying  his  warlike  prowess  on  English 
soil. 

Then  for  a  while  there  was  peace  between  France 
and  England.  So  now  warriors  on  both  sides  the  Channel 
might  together  turn  their  arms  against  the  Infidel.  In 
1389,  as  in  St.  Louis'  day,  it  was  against  the  African 
Miscreant  that  the  Crusade  was  directed.  Guy  de  La 
Tremoille,  with  his  brother  Guillaume,  and  his  brother- 
in-law  Sully,  was  not  loath,  we  may  be  sure,  to  follow 
the  Due  de  Bourbon,  another  of  the  King's  uncles,  who 
led  the  French  Crusaders. 

In  some  of  his  most  picturesque  passages,  Froissart  has 
described  the  voyage  of  these  "  Christen  men  "  to  what 
he  calls  "  the  town  of  Afryke,"  the  modern  Almalia,  very 
near  the  site  of  ancient  Carthage. 

"  The  trumpets  blew  up  at  their  departing,"  writes 

1  Coleridge,  "  Ode  on  the  Departing  Year,"  quoted  by  Michelet,  "  Hist, 
de  France."  Bk.  VII.,  Chap.  II. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  7 

the  historian,^  ''and  it  was  great  pleasure  to  behold  how 
they  rowed  abroad  in  the  sea,  which  was  peaceable,  calm 
and  fair,  showing  herself  desirous  that  the  Christen  men 
should  come  before  the  strong  town  of  Afryke.  The 
Christen  navy  was  goodly  to  regard,  and  well  ordered  ; 
and  it  was  great  beauty  to  see  the  banners  and  penons  of 
silk,  with  the  arms  and  badges  of  the  lordes  and  other, 
waving  with  the  wind,  and  shining  against  the  sun. 
Coming  to  the  haven  of  Afryke,  the  Christen  men  lodged 
all  night  there.  The  next  morning  the  weather  was  fair 
and  clear,  and  the  air  in  good  temper,  and  the  sun  rose, 
that  it  was  pleasure  to  behold.  Then  the  Christen  men 
began  to  stir  and  to  make  ready  to  take  land.  Then 
trumpets  and  clarions  began  to  sound  in  the  galleys  and 
vessels,  and  made  great  noise.  And  about  nine  of  the 
clock,  when  the  Christen  men  had  taken  a  little  refreshing 
with  drink,  then  were  they  rejoiced  and  lighted.  And, 
according  as  they  had  appointed  before,  they  sent  in  first 
their  light  Vfessels  called  brigandyns,  well  furnished  with 
artillery  ;  they  entered  into  the  haven,  and  after  them 
came  the  galleys  and  the  other  ships  of  the  fleet  in  good 
order. 

"And,  turning  towards  the  land  by  the  sea  side,  there 
was  a  strong  castle  with  high  towers,  and  especially  one 
Tower  which  defended  the  sea  side  and  the  land  also ; 
and  in  this  Tower  was  a  bricoU  or  an  engine  which  was  not 
idle,  but  still  did  cast  great  stones  among  the  Christen 
men's  ships.  And  likewise  in  every  tower  of  the  town 
on  the  sea-side,  there  were  engines  to  cast  stones." 

Despite  these  stones  which  assailed  them,  the  "  Christen 
men"  appear  to  have  received  no  great  hurt  in  landing. 
And  without  further  let  or  hindrance  from  the  Saracens, 
they  pitched  their  tents  upon  the  shore,  Guillaume  de  La 
Tremoille's  on  the  right  of  the  Duke's  from  which  floated, 
his  banner  covered  with  flowers  de  luce,  with  Our  Lady 

1  Lord  Beraer's  Trans.,  ed.  1812,  II.,  499. 


8  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

in  the  midst  and  the  arms  of  Bourbon  at  her  feet.  Next 
to  Guillaume's  tent  came  the  Comte  de  Sully's,  and  then 
Sire  Guy's. 

From  the  walls  of  Afryke  "  the  false  Saracens  "  had 
watched  the  **  Christen  men  "  disembarking,  and  had  mar- 
velled to  see  them  approach  the  shore  in  Httle  boats. 
But,  save  for  the  throwing  of  stones,  the  Infidel  made  no 
attempt  to  prevent  their  landing. 

Soon,  however,  tidings  of  the  enemy's  descent  upon 
their  coasts  were  bruited  abroad  in  the  country  round 
about  Afryke  ;  and  a  great  Saracen  army  came  and 
encamped  over  against  the  "  Christen  men  "  on  the  sea- 
shore. 

Then  there  began  what  was  little  more  than  a  long 
drawn  out  tournament.  On  the  second  day  in  the  morn- 
ing, the  Saracens  came  to  skirmish  with  the  "  Christen 
men  ;  "  and  the  skirmishing  endured  the  space  of  two 
hours.  The  Saracens  would  not  fight  hand  to  hand,  but 
they  fought  with  casting  of  darts  and  shooting,  and 
would  not  foolishly  adventure  themselves,  but  wisely  and 
sagely  "  reculed." 

Among  the  Saracens  was  one  knight  who  especially 
distinguished  himself.  His  name  was  Agadingor  Doly- 
ferne  {sic),  and  his  father  was  the  Duke  of  Olyferne. 
Agadingor  was  always  well  mounted  on  a  light  and  ready 
horse,  "  which  seemed  as  if  he  did  flie  in  the  air."  Armed 
he  was  with  three  feathered  darts,  and  right  well  could 
he  handle  them.  About  his  head  he  wore  a  long  white 
towel.  His  apparel  was  black,  and  his  own  colour 
brown.  The  knights  of  France  would  fain  have  taken 
him,  but  they  could  never  entrap  or  enclose  him,  so  swift 
was  his  horse,  and  so  ready  to  his  hand. 

The  "  Christen  men  "  said  they  thought  he  did  such  deeds 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  g 

for  the  love  of  some  young  lady  of  his  country.  And  true 
it  was  that  he  loved  entirely  the  lady  Azala,  daughter  of 
the  King  of  Tunis.  "  I  cannot  tell/'  says  Froissart  as 
he  relates  this  story,  "  if  they  were  married  together  after 
or  not." 

After  some  weeks  of  this  skirmishing,  the  Saracens 
bethought  them  to  send  a  messenger  to  the  "Christen  men  " 
to  inquire  of  them  wherefore  they  had  come  against  the 
town  of  Afryke.  So  they  took  an  interpreter,  who  spoke 
Italian,  and  sent  him.  On  the  way  to  the  Christen 
camp  the  interpreter  met  a  Genoese,  and  together  they 
went  to  the  "  Christen  men  "  and  asked  them  wherefore 
they  had  come  to  Afryke. 

Then  the  Due  de  Bourbon  held  a  council  of  war  in  his 
tent,  summoning  no  doubt  the  two  La  Tremoilles  and 
their  brother-in-law  Sully.  And,  after  deliberating  as  to 
what  answer  they  should  send  to  their  enemies,  the 
knights  told  the  interpreter  to  say  that  because  the 
Saracens  had  crucified  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
therefore  had  the  Christen  men  come  against  them. 

When  the  interpreter  rendered  this  answer  to  those 
who  had  sent  him,  the  Saracens  did  nothing  but  laugh, 
and  say  how  that  answer  was  nothing  reasonable,  for  it 
was  the  Jews  who  put  Christ  to  death,  and  not  they. 

Now  this  skirmishing  and  curvetting  in  the  plain  had 
already  lasted  a  month,  and  no  attack  had  yet  been  made 
upon  the  town.  Soon  after  the  answer  had  been  sent  to  the 
Saracens,  the  "  Christen  men  "  stormed  Afryke  and  entered 
within  the  walls,  where  many  of  their  number  were  slain, 
and  whence  they  were  forced  to  retreat,  having  failed  to 
capture  the  town.  Then  great  discontent  arose  in  the 
army.  The  Due  de  Bourbon  was  arrogant  and  lazy. 
Famine  and  pestilence  attacked  the  "  Christen  men,"  and 


10  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

also  many  died  of  the  great  heat.  Moreover,  the  knights 
began  to  fear  the  treachery  of  the  Genoese,  whose  ships 
had  brought  them  to  Afryke.  And  so,  seeing  there  was 
nothing  more  to  be  done,  the  "  Christen  men  " — such  of 
them  as  were  left — returned  crestfallen  to  their  own  homes. 

The  La  Tremoille  brothers  were  among  those  who  had 
escaped  the  mischance  of  war,  famine  and  disease.  They 
with  their  companions-in-arms  assigned  the  ignominious 
failure  of  the  expedition  to  the  incompetency  of  its 
leader,  the  Due  de  Bourbon,  who  had  done  nothing  but 
lounge  idly  at  his  tent  door,  surveying  his  camp  in  super- 
cilious taciturnity. 

Nothing  daunted,  however.  Sire  Guy  and  his  brother 
began  to  dream  of  new  conquests.  And  soon  we  shall 
find  them  setting  forth  on  another  crusade.  Meanwhile, 
Guy's  sword  was  not  allowed  to  rust  in  its  scabbard. 
When  there  were  no  English  to  fight  in  France,  he  was 
ready  to  strike  a  blow  for  any  righteous  cause  that  might 
present  itself.  Accordingly  in  the  Tremoille  archives  we 
find  evidence  of  numerous  sums  of  money  received  by 
Sire  Guy,  as  the  reward  of  his  military  services,  from 
various  European  potentates,  from  Pope  Clement  VII., 
from  Galeas  Visconti  Duke  of  Milan,  from  the  Duchess  of 
Brabant,  and  from  the  Queen  of  Naples  and  Jerusalem. 
Not  that  Guy  de  La  Tremoille  was  a  mercenary  soldier. 
He  offered  his  services  freely  ;  but  when  they  had  been 
rendered  he  was  apparently  not  above  accepting  some 
financial  acknowledgment  of  them. 

In  1391,  Charles  VI.  tendered  to  Guy  de  La  Tremoille 
the  highest  military  honour  he  had  to  bestow,  the  sword 
of  the  Constable  of  France.  The  previous  Constable, 
Olivier  de  Clisson,  unpopular  at  court,  had  been  deprived 
of  his  office,  and  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  assassinate 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  ii 

him.  But  Olivier  had  been  Count  Guy's  friend  and  com- 
panion-in-arms, and  La  Tremoille  loyally  refused  to 
profit  by  his  friend's  disgrace. 

Instead  he  went  with  King  Charles  on  an  expedition  to 
punish  the  would-be  murderer,  who  had  taken  refuge  in 
the  heaths  of  Brittany.  It  was  with  Count  Guy  at  his 
side  that,  in  the  broiling  August  heat,  the  King  at  the 
head  of  his  barons  rode  forth  into  the  west  country,  and 
there  was  overtaken  by  the  first  of  those  terrible  attacks 
of  madness  which  were  to  plunge  the  realm  into  ruin  and 
confusion. 

Soon  afterwards,  another  truce^.  having  been  signed 
with  England,  and  sealed  by  the  marriage  of  the  French 
King's  little  daughter  Isabelle  with  Richard  IL,  the 
widower  King  of  England,  French  and  English  knights 
again  prepared  to  wage  war  in  common  against  the 
Infidel.  And  again  Guy  and  Guillaume  de  La  Tremoille 
took  the  cross. 

At  the  request  of  Sigismund,  King  of  Hungary,  the 
Crusaders  directed  their  march  towards  the  Balkans, 
where  that  great  Ottoman  leader,  Bajazet,  surnamed 
Ildemin  or  Lightning,  was  laying  waste  the  country  with 
fire  and  sword,  advancing  to  the  walls  of  Constantinople, 
and  boasting  that  he  would  feed  his  horse  with  a  bushel 
of  oats  on  St.  Peter's  altar  at  Rome. 

This  time  the  French  Crusaders  were  led  by  the  King's 
cousin,  the  young  Comte  de  Nevers,  eldest  son  of  Duke 
Philip,  and  later  to  be  known  as  John  the  Fearless.  On  the 
most  extravagant  and  luxurious  scale  did  the  French 
knights  make  their  preparations.  Their  banners  and 
saddle  cloths  were  embroidered  in  gold  and  silver,  their 

1  Signed  in  1395  for  three  years,  and  in  the  following  year  prolonged 
for  twenty-eight. 


12  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

tents  were  of  satin  ;  carts  laden  with  silver  plate  and 
delicate  wines  followed  the  army. 

Thus  equipped,  gay  and  joyous  as  if  for  a  tournament, 
commanded  by  the  flower  of  French  chivalry,  the  crusad- 
ing host,  some  10,000  strong,  set  forth  to  join  in  Hungary 
the  German,  PoHsh,  English  and  Hungarian  troops 
collected  by  Sigismund. 

No  sooner  had  the  Crusaders  joined  forces  than 
dissension  broke  out  in  the  councils  of  war.  The  cautious 
Sigismund  wished  to  remain  on  the  defensive,  while  the 
headstrong  French  knights  insisted  on  immediately 
marching  in  search  of  the  enemy. 

Having  crossed  the  Danube  at  Orsova,  the  Crusaders 
proceeded  to  lay  siege  to  the  town  of  Nicopolis.  Then, 
with  a  rapidity  which  justified  his  name,  Bajazet,  raising 
the  siege  of  Constantinople,  descended  upon  the  Crusaders 
before  they  had  the  slightest  idea  that  he  was  even  in  the 
neighbourhood.  The  French  lords  were  at  table  and 
already  heated  with  wine,  when  their  scouts  brought  in 
the  news  that  Bajazet  was  upon  them.  Again  the 
impetuous  Comte  de  Nevers,  rejecting  the  Hungarian 
King's  counsels  of  caution,  insisted  on  leading  his  troops 
to  the  attack.  And  at  first  he  was  victorious,  forcing  a 
rampart  of  stakes  and  overcoming  even  the  Janissaries 
themselves.  Then,  inflated  with  pride  and  zeal,  he 
committed  the  error  of  the  Comte  d'Artois  at  Mansourah, 
and  allowed  the  French  vanguard  to  be  cut  off  from  the 
main  body  of  the  army.  Overwhelmed  by  numerous 
squadrons  which  issued  from  the  woods,  these  intrepid 
warriors  were  surrounded  on  all  sides. 

The  rank  and  file,  having  refused  to  abjure  their  faith, 
were  to  the  number  of  10,000  beheaded  in  the  con- 
queror's presence.      Nevers  and  four  and  twenty  knights 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  13 

who  had  escaped  slaughter  were  kept  as  prisoners  and 
held  to  ransom.  Among  them  were  Lord  Guy  and  his 
brother. 

That  year,  as  the  King  was  keeping  Christmas,  at  Paris, 
in  his  H6tel  of  St.  Paul,  there  dashed  into  his  presence  a 
messenger  from  the  east,  all  booted  and  spurred  and  dust 
stained  with  travel.  He  was  one  of  the  twenty-five 
prisoners  taken  at  Nicopolis,  and  Bajazet  had  released 
him  in  order  that  he  might  carry  to  France  tidings  of  the 
disaster. 

It  was  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  the 
enormous  ransoms  which  the  Turk  demanded  could  be 
collected.  Lord  Guy's  for  the  most  part  was  borrowed 
from  the  Pallavicini  at  Geneva.  Meanwhile,  in  order  to 
appease  the  conqueror's  wrath,  and  secure  good  treat- 
ment of  the  prisoners,  King  Charles  and  Duke  Philip  sent 
him  rich  gifts — a  gold  salt-cellar  of  curious  workmanship, 
a  cast  of  Norwegian  hawks,  and  six  horse-loads  of  scarlet 
cloth,  of  fine  Reims  linen  and  of  Arras  tapestry,  repre- 
senting the  battles  of  Alexander. 

For  nine  months  the  prisoners  were  dragged  from  place 
to  place  in  their  conqueror's  train.  And  then  at  length 
their  ransoms  arrived. 

Before  they  left  him,  Bajazet  let  flie  at  his  prisoners 
one  parting  shaft  of  derision.  Summoning  the  French 
knights  to  his  presence,  he  cried  :  "  Raise  what  puissance 
ye  will,  spare  nought,  and  come  against  me  a  second  time. 
Ye  shall  find  me  always  ready  to  receive  ye  in  the  field  in 
plain  battle."  To  point  this  mockery,  and  to  reciprocate 
the  French  King's  gifts,  Bajazet  sent  him  a  mass  of  iron, 
a  suit  of  Turkish  armour  made  of  wool,  a  drum  and  bows 
with  strings  made  of  human  entrails. 

From  Bajazet's  camp  the  French  knights  sailed  in 


14  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

galleys  to  the  island  of  Rhodes,  staying  on  their  way  in 
the  port  of  Mathelyn.  There  Guy  and  his  brother  were 
graciously  received  by  the  Lady  of  Mathelyn,  who,  we 
read,  was  as  well  assured  of  herself  as  any  lady  in  Greece, 
for  had  she  not  been  brought  up  at  the  Emperor  Con- 
stantine's  court  with  the  Lady  Mary  of  Bourbon  ?  And 
from  her  she  had  learnt  French  nurture,  '*  for  in  France 
the  lords  and  ladies  were  more  honorable  than  in  any 
other  countries." 

By  the  Lady  of  Mathelyn  the  French  knights  were 
newly  apparelled  in  shirts,  gowns,  and  other  garments  of 
fine  damask,  according  to  the  usage  of  Greece.  Then, 
proceeding  to  Rhodes,  they  received  from  the  Grand 
Prior  some  gold  and  silver  of  which  they  stood  in  dire 
need. 

But  to  Sire  Guy  it  was  not  given  to  return  to  his  native 
land,  nor  to  be  buried  at  Dijon  as  Duke  Philip  had  directed. 
For  he  had  never  recovered  from  the  wounds  received  at 
Nicopolis.  At  Rhodes  a  fever  fell  upon  him,  and  he  died 
on  May  4th,  1397,  and  was  buried  in  the  Church  of  St. 
John,  "  the  lords  of  France  doing  his  obsequy  right 
reverently." 

Meanwhile,  away  in  France,  Marie  de  Sully  was  looking 
eagerly  for  her  husband's  return.  On  May  22nd,  1397, 
Duke  Philip  had  sent  her  word  that  Sire  Guy  was  well, 
that  his  ransom  had  been  paid,  and  that  he  was  on  his 
way  home.  On  August  7th,  when  she  was  in  her  chateau 
of  Craon,  came  the  news  that  Guy  lay  dead  in  the  Island 
of  Rhodes.^ 

A  life  full  of  care  Dame  Marie  must  have  led  during  her 
husband's  absences  on  the  Crusades.  For  to  raise  funds 
ior  these  expeditions  his  lands  had  been  heavily  mort- 

1  Bertrand  de  Broussillon,  "  La  Maison  de  Craon,"  II.,  38. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION 


15 


gaged,  and  on  Marie  it  had  devolved  to  pay  the  interest 
on  the  money  lent,  and  out  of  such  revenue  as  remained 
to  keep  the  princely  household  going.  Now  she  was  left 
a  widow  with  seven  children,  four  sons  and  three  daughters. 
Perhaps  it  was  to  provide  herself  and  her  family  with  a 
protector  that,  soon  after  Guy's  death,  she  gave  a  step- 
father to  her  children  in  the  person  of  Charles  d'Albret, 
Constable  of  France.  By  him  she  was  to  become  the 
ancestress  of  French  Kings,  of  whom  the  first  was  the 
famous  Henry  Quatre. 


i6  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 


CHAPTER  II 

GEORGES   DE   LA  TRl^MOILLE.      I382  (?) — 1446 
"  A  kind  of  Gargantua,  who  devoured  the  country."  ^ 

Towards  the  dawn  of  the  fifteenth  century,  disruptive 
forces  were  everywhere  at  work  throughout  Christendom  ; 
and  among  the  most  powerful  were  the  violence  and  greed 
of  barons  like  Georges  de  La  Tremoille. 

*'  Luxury  and  vice  such  as  'twere  piteous  to  tell  of  had 
kindled  against  the  French  the  wrath  of  Heaven,  and  in 
the  divine  hand  the  King  of  England  was  but  a  rod  for 
chastisement."  This  was  the  consolation  which  Henry  V. 
addressed  to  Charles,  Duke  of  Orleans,  who,  having  been 
taken  prisoner  at  Agincourt,  in  abject  grief  and  utter 
desolation  was  refusing  food  and  drink,  like  many  a 
prisoner  of  later  date. 

But  in  his  complacent  self-satisfaction,  Henry  V. 
failed  to  discern  the  true  cause  of  the  wickedness  he  held 
himself  divinely  appointed  to  punish.  He  would  have 
been  the  last  to  admit  that  his  own  people,  by  their 
perpetual  invasions  of  French  territory,  had  created  that 
prolonged  disorder,  during  which  French  barons  became 
monsters  of  iniquity  preying  upon  women  and  children, 
and  scrupling  not  even  to  enter  into  contracts  with  the 
Evil  One. 

Almost  incredible  are  the  hideous  crimes  said  to  have 
been  committed  in  France  in  those  days.  The  story  of 
the  ghastly  enormities  perpetrated  by  Gille  de  Rais,  the 

1  "The  Life  of  Joan  of  Arc,"  translated  from  the  French  of  Anatole 
France,  I.,  147. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  17 

original  of  Blue  Beard,  is  well  known.  And  Gille  was  a 
relative  of  La  Tremoille.  The  brutality  of  Georges  de  La 
Tremoille  himself  has  seldom  been  equalled.  By  his 
persistent  cruelty  he  caused  the  death  of  his  first  wife. 
But  the  victim  who  suffered  most  from  his  cruelty  was 
hapless  France.  Poverty  stricken  she  was  when  he 
found  her ;  yet  by  his  ruthless  extortions  "  he  stripped 
her  to  the  bone,  and  left  her  a  bloodless  corpse,  a  mete 
skeleton." 

Georges,  the  eldest  son  of  Guy  de  La  Tremoille  and 
Marie  de  Sully,  was  born  in  the  early  eighties  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  He  was  brought  up  in  the  house- 
hold of  the  Burgundian  dukes,  first  by  Duke  Philip  and, 
after  his  death,  by  his  son,  John  the  Fearless. 

In  1407,  Georges  became  Duke  John's  chief  Chamber- 
lain, and  in  that  year  fought  with  the  Burgundian  forces 
against  the  citizens  of  Liege  at  the  battle  of  Tongres. 
Then  King  Charles  VI.  appointed  him  Master  of  Woods 
and  Waters,  and  Governor  of  Dauphine.  By  this  time 
La  Tremoille  was  one  of  the  boon  companions  of  the 
worthless  Dauphin  Louis, ^  generally  known  as  the  Duke 
of  Guyenne.  And  in  that  capacity  he  played  no  incon- 
siderable part  in  the  troubled  events  of  14 13,  one  of  the 
most  revolutionary  years  in  French  history. 

Charles  VI.  was  now  hopelessly  mad,  and  the  royal 
power  was  alternately  exercised  by  the  leaders  of  the 
Burgundian  and  Orleanist  factions,  Duke  John  and 
Bernard,  Count  of  Armagnac.  As  leader  of  the  Orleanists, 
henceforth  to  be  known  as  Armagnacs,  Count  Bernard 
had  succeeded  Louis,  Duke  of  Orleans,  murdered  some 
six  years  earlier  by  Burgundy's  paid  assassins. 

1  Three  of  Charles  VI. 's  sons  in  succession  bore  the  title  of  Dauphin  : 
Louis,  who  died  in  1415  ;  then  Jean,  who  died  in  1416  ;  and  then 
Charles,  who,  in  1422,  succeeded  to  the  throne  as  Charles  VII. 

C.R.  C 


i8  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

In  1413,  however,  Burgundians  and  Armagnacs  alike 
were  superseded  by  the  dominance  of  the  Butchers  or 
Cabochiens,  the  richest,  the  oldest,  and  the  most  in- 
fluential of  the  trade  corporations  of  Paris.  Including 
not  merely  slaughterers  and  sellers  of  cattle,  but  tanners, 
leather-workers  and  tripe-dealers,  the  Butchers  were 
proud  to  trace  back  the  origin  of  their  corporation  to 
Roman  times.  Indeed,  they  considered  themselves  a 
commercial  aristocracy.  Kings  and  courtiers  did  not 
disdain  to  don  the  white  hood  which  was  the  sign  of  their 
order.  The  Butchers'  shops  descended  like  feudal  fiefs 
from  father  to  son.  Their  nobility  were  the  families  of 
St.  Yon,  of  Thibert  and  of  Legoix,  who  constituted  what 
was  called  La  Grande  Boucherie,  and  who  dwelt  near  the 
present  Tour  St.  Jacques,  behind  what  was  then  the 
Chatelet  Prison.  In  those  days  the  citizens  of  Paris  were 
organised  into  quarters,  each  quarter  into  hundreds,  and 
each  hundred  into  groups  of  ten.  Every  quarter  had  its 
captain  or  quarienier,  whose  duty  it  was  to  command  the 
watch,  and  to  provide  for  the  defence  of  his  district.  In 
1413,  the  captain  of  the  Butchers'  quarter  was  Jean 
Caboche,  who  gave  his  name  to  the  fraternity. 

The  quarter  of  Jean  Caboche,  consisting  of  an  army  of 
slaughterers,  salesmen  and  apprentices,  was  a  formidable 
force  which  had  to  be  reckoned  with  in  all  city  riots. 
Indeed,  considering  on  the  one  hand  the  Crown's  weakness 
and  the  feuds  among  the  barons,  and  on  the  other  the 
Butchers'  wealth  and  compact  organisation,  it  seemed 
not  unlikely  that  this  corporation  of  Parisian  tradesmen 
might  one  day  come  to  rule  the  kingdom. 

Duke  John  of  Burgundy  was  quick  to  grasp  this 
situation  and  to  turn  it  to  his  own  advantage,  wherefore 
he  made  friends  with  the  Butchers,  sending  them  every 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  19 

year  casks  of  choice  wine  from  his  rich  vintage  of 
Beaune. 

Precisely  how  far  this  aUiance  between  Burgundy  and 
the  Butchers  extended  and  how  much  it  involved  is 
difficult  to  tell.  At  times  Duke  John  seemed  to  be 
using  the  Cabochiens  as  his  instruments,  at  others  the 
tradesmen  seemed  to  be  bending  the  great  Duke  to  their 
will  and  employing  him  to  carry  out  a  policy  which  was 
all  their  own.  In  the  tangled  turmoil  of  events  in  1413 
it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  it  was  Burgundy  who 
incited  the  Butchers  or  the  Butchers  Burgundy.  But 
one  point  is  clear  :  the  Butchers  believed  that  all  the 
woes  from  which  France  was  suffering  were  caused  by 
the  King's  lunacy,  which  was  a  punishment  sent  from 
God^  ;  and  they  held  that  it  was  for  the  sins  of  royalty 
God  had  smitten  the  King  with  madness,  and  struck 
down  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  The  Butchers' 
one  hope  for  the  Kingdom  of  France  lay  in  La  Tremoille's 
friend,  the  Dauphin  Louis  ;  but  this  hope  was  tempered 
by  the  fear  lest  he  should  resemble  his  father. 

In  this  year,  1413,  Louis  was  seventeen,  a  much  more 
mature  age  then  than  now.  For  at  fifteen  Louis'  cousin, 
Charles,  Duke  of  Orleans,  was  a  married  man,  the  father 
of  a  family,  and  the  nominal  leader  of  a  great  party. 
Yet  at  seventeen  the  Dauphin  was  set  on  nothing  save 
pageantry  and  pleasure.  This  frivolity,  however,  the 
Butchers  attributed  to  evil  influences,  one  of  the  most 
pernicious  of  which  they  considered  to  be  his  friendship 
with  La  Tremoille.  There  was  no  man  in  France  whom 
the  Butchers  more  bitterly  hated.  And  to  separate  him 
from  the  Dauphin  became  one  of  their  chief  objects 
throughout  this  year.     Had  it  not  been  for  the  powerful 

1  Michelet,  "  Hist,  de  France,"  Bk.  VIII.,  Chap.  III. 

C  2 


20  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

influence  which  Duke  John  exercised  on  his  behalf, 
Georges  would  doubtless  have  shared  the  fate  of  other 
members  of  the  Dauphin's  circle,  whom  the  Butchers 
drowned  in  the  Seine  or  imprisoned  in  the  Louvre.  The 
following  graphic  details  of  one  of  La  Tremoille's 
encounters  with  these  tradesmen  have  been  preserved  in 
a  chronicle  of  the  period/ 

It  fell  out  that  upon  July  loth,  1413,  as  a  little  before 
midnight,  a  company  of  Butchers,  led  by  one,  Helion  de 
Jacqueville,  a  knight  of  Beauce,  were  returning  from 
their  patrol  of  the  city  to  their  quarters  in  St.  Jacques 
that  they  passed  by  the  Hotel  de  Guyenne,  the  Dauphin's 
palace  in  the  Rue  St.  Antoine.  There  the  puritanical 
ears  of  the  watch  were  offended  by  the  sound  of  music 
and  of  dancing.  Highly  improper  did  it  seem  to  Jacque- 
ville and  his  men  that  the  heir  to  the  fair  realm  of  France 
should  be  keeping  high  revelry  at  that  hour  of  the  night. 
With  other  functions  of  government  the  Butchers  had 
already  assumed  the  censorship  of  public  morals.  And 
in  this  capacity  they  forced  their  way  into  the  palace, 
penetrating  even  into  the  royal  presence  chamber. 

There  finding  the  Dauphin  dancing  with  his  lords  and 
ladies,  Jacqueville  rated  his  prince  soundly  for  being  a 
profligate  and  a  spendthrift.  But  La  Tremoille,  who  was 
standing  by,  was  the  last  to  tolerate  such  an  intrusion 
on  his  own  and  his  prince's  pleasures.  To  Jacqueville's 
sermon  La  Tremoille  retorted  that  it  was  grossly  imper- 
tinent to  address  the  Dauphin  thus,  and  at  such  an  hour 
to  intrude  on  the  royal  presence.  In  the  violent  dispute 
which  ensued  Louis,  in  self-defence,  drew  his  dagger  and 
three  times  smote  Jacqueville  on  the  breast,  but  did 

1  Juvenal  des  Ursins,  "  Histoire  de  Charles  VI.,  Roi  de  France,"  ed  : 
Michaud  et  Poujoulat,  Ser.  I.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  48.5. 


TO   THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  21 

him  no  hurt,  because  the  knight  wore  a  coat  of  mail 
beneath  his  cloak.  On  the  morrow,  the  Butchers  were 
preparing  to  take  and  slay  the  proud  baron  who  on  the 
previous  evening  had  bearded  them  in  the  Dauphin's 
chamber,  when  Burgundy  intervened  on  behalf  of  his 
vassal,  and  saved  La  Tremoille's  life. 

The  arrogant  Cabochiens,  however,  were  heading  for 
a  fall.  The  other  Parisian  corporations  would  not  long 
brook  the  insolence  of  the  Butchers.  The  Carpenters  of 
Paris,  declaring  they  would  soon  see  whether  there  were 
not  in  the  city  as  many  hewers  of  wood  as  slayers  of 
beasts,  called  to  their  aid  the  Duke  of  Orleans  and  the 
Count  of  Armagnac,  who,  with  a  powerful  force,  were 
marching  towards  the  capital. 

On  his  rivals'  entrance  into  Paris,  on  August  23rd,  Duke 
John  prudently  withdrew,  taking  the  poor,  mad  King  with 
him.  But  a  party  of  citizens  intercepted  the  Duke's  com- 
pany at  Vincennes  and  brought  the  King  back  to  his 
capital.  Two  of  the  Butchers'  leaders  were  executed,  and 
their  quarters  in  St.  Jacques  were  razed  to  the  ground. 

La  Tremoille  did  not,  as  we  might  expect,  accompany 
Duke  John  into  exile.  Now  that  the  Armagnacs  were 
in  the  ascendant,  and  his  enemies,  the  Butchers,  deposed 
from  power,  Georges  forgot  the  gratitude  he  owed  to 
Burgundy,  and,  remaining  in  Paris  with  his  friend  the 
Dauphin,  threw  in  his  lot  with  the  new  government.  In 
1416  we  find  King  Charles  undertaking  to  pay  La 
Tremoille  10,000  francs  if  he  will  raise  a  company 
of  men-at-arms  to  proceed  against  the  English  and  the 
Burgundians.  Georges  duly  performed  his  part  of  the 
bargain.  But,  when  he  found  that  Charles  was  not  so 
ready  to  perform  his.  La  Tremoille  paid  himself  the 
10,000  francs  out  of  the  purse  of    one    of   the   King's 


22  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

tax-gatherers  who,  with  a  goodly  sum  collected  in  Orleans 
and  destined  for  the  royal  exchequer,  had  the  misfortune 
to  pass  by  Sully  on  his  way  to  court. 

When  the  Dauphin's  dissolute  court  was  scattered  on 
Louis*  death  in  1415,  La  Tremoille  speedily  joined  the 
no  less  licentious  circle  which  gathered  round  Queen 
Isabelle  at  her  palaces  of  Vincennes  and  Melun. 

No  name  in  French  history  is  more  execrated  than 
that  of  Isabelle,  Charles  VL's  Queen  ;  for  she  it  was 
who  some  years  later  sold  France  to  the  English.  Yet 
her  sad  history  must  arouse  pity  even  in  the  most 
censorious  breast.  Radiantly  beautiful  in  youth,  she 
was  passionately  adored  by  her  royal  husband.  Then 
lunacy  converted  Charles  VL  from  the  most  amorous 
into  the  most  persecuting  of  consorts.  He,  whom 
Isabelle's  portrait  had  once  struck  dumb  with  admiration, 
was  now  driven  frantic  by  the  mere  sight  of  her  arms 
quartered  with  his  own.  To  save  her  life  the  Queen  was 
compelled  to  establish  herself  in  a  separate  residence, 
where  her  weak,  voluptuous  nature  found  consolation  in 
the  attentions  of  numerous  admirers.  Among  them  was 
her  brother-in-law,  Louis,  Duke  of  Orleans.  And  it 
was  as,  with  a  song  upon  his  lips,  he  rode  carelessly  out 
of  the  gateway  of  the  Queen's  Hotel,  Barbette,  into  the 
darkness  of  the  night  that  Louis  had  been  set  upon  and 
slain  by  the  Duke  of  Burgundy's  hired  assassins. 

Shunning  an  abode  haunted  by  so  sad  a  memory,  the 
pleasure-loving  Queen  removed  to  Vincennes.  There 
she  rapidly  sank  into  a  valetudinarian  and  sybaritish 
old  age.  She,  who  had  once  been  the  most  graceful  and 
agile  of  horsewomen,  grew  so  corpulent  that  her  valets  had 
to  carry  her  in  a  chair  from  room  to  room.  At  Vincennes, 
while   the   peasants   of  France  were   starving,   Isabelle 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  23 

hoarded  treasure,  and  lavished  vast  sums  on  all  manner 
of  whimsies,  on  aviaries  of  singing  birds,  on  menageries, 
and  on  marvellous  medicines. 

To  the  Queen,  in  1415,  resorted,  as  we  have  said, 
La  Tremoille  and  all  the  dead  Dauphin's  boon  com- 
panions. And  one  is  not  surprised  that  to  contemporary 
moralists,  scandalised  by  the  manners  of  the  Vincennes 
court,  the  spindle  legs  of  these  gay  gallants  encased  in 
the  tightest  of  hose  and  the  high-horned,  wide-eared 
head-dresses  of  their  ladies,  appeared  somewhat  devilish. 

Soon,  however,  serious  national  matters  claimed  even 
the  attention  of  these  voluptuous  courtiers,  for  the  knights 
of  France  were  summoned  to  resist  Henry  of  England 
upon  the  field  of  Agincourt.  And  there,  on  October  25th, 
1415,  La  Tremoille  was  taken  prisoner.  Happily  for 
him,  but  unhappily  for  France,  he  was  not  considered 
sufficiently  important  to  be  carried  away  to  England 
with  prisoners  of  higher  rank,  such  as  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
the  Duke  of  Bourbon,  the  Count  of  Vendome  and  the 
Count  of  Richemont.  So,  on  November  29th,  having 
received  from  King  Henry  a  robe  of  fine  damask,  and 
undertaken  to  pay  a  heavy  ransom  at  the  great  Lendit 
Fair  at  St.  Denis  on  the  following  Midsummer  Day, 
La  Tremoille  was  liberated  at  Calais. 

We  suspect  that  it  was  to  help  pay  his  ransom  that 
Georges  now  resolved  to  take  a  wife.  The  unhappy 
victim  he  selected  was  a  great  heiress,  ten  years  his 
senior,  a  princess  of  the  blood  royal,  Jeanne,  Countess  of 
Boulogne  and  of  Auvergne,  once  the  adored  wife,  and 
now  the  widow  of  the  old  Duke  of  Berry. 

Only  four  months  after  the  Duke's  death,  in  the  year 
after  Agincourt,  Jeanne  d* Auvergne  and  La  Tremoille 
were  married. 


24  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

In  the  contract  signed  at  Aigueperse,  Jeanne  unwisely 
agreed  that  she  and  her  husband  should  hold  all  their 
property  in  common.  Of  this  generosity  she  soon  had 
reason  to  repent ;  and,  falling  out  with  her  rapacious 
husband,  she  settled  all  her  wealth  on  her  cousin,  Marie 
d'Auvergne.  Meanwhile  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  who 
was  Jeanne's  overlord,  refused  to  deliver  into  her  husband's 
hands  the  county  of  Boulogne.  So,  La  Tremoille,  doubly 
disappointed  in  his  greed,  vented  his  fury  on  his  miserable 
wife,  whom  he  imprisoned  in  a  lonely  castle  of  Auvergne 
until,  in  1418,  death  came  to  her  release. 

La  Tremoille  was  now  fully  launched  on  a  career  of 
rapine  and  violence.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  his  great 
castles  peace  and  security  were  unknown.  In  order 
to  further  his  covetous  designs  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
lay  waste  whole  districts  with  fire  and  sword  ;  and  from 
the  confusion  and  disorder  already  existing  in  France 
he  made  ready  to  suck  no  small  advantage.  Although 
more  than  once  he  was  employed  to  negotiate  terms  of 
peace  between  English  and  French,  Burgundians  and 
Armagnacs,  peace  was  the  very  last  thing  he  wanted. 
Had  his  negotiations  been  successful,  which  they  never 
were,  he  would  have  pleaded  in  the  words  of  the  trouba- 
dour, Bertrand  de  Born  :  "  When  there  is  peace  on  every 
hand  let  a  strip  of  war  be  left  for  me." 

In  1418,  La  Tremoille,  apparently  without  any  provoca- 
tion, had  seized  Gouge  de  Charpaignes,  Bishop  of 
Clermont,  and  imprisoned  him  in  his  castle  of  Sully, 
intending  to  keep  him  there  until  he  should  pay  the 
ransom  his  captor  demanded.  And  it  was  only  the 
appearance  before  Sully  of  the  Dauphin  himself  at  the 
head  of  a  formidable  army  that  set  the  unhappy  bishop 
at  liberty. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  25 

Now,  on  his  wife's  death  La  Tremoille  determined  that 
at  any  cost  he  would  conquer  her  inheritance  ;  and  with 
this  object  he  sent  an  army  into  Auvergne.  But  again 
his  lawless  plans  were  thwarted  by  the  Dauphin,  who, 
in  1423,  despatched  against  him  Marshal  Gilbert  de  La 
Fayette  at  the  head  of  a  formidable  force.  La  Tremoille 
withdrew  his  troops  from  Auvergne,  but  he  never  forgave 
the  general  who  had  compelled  him  to  do  so  ;  and  when, 
some  years  later,  he  became  minister  of  the  Crown,  one 
of  his  first  acts  was  to  deprive  La  Fayette  of  the  command 
and  to  banish  him  from  Court,  appointing  in  his  stead 
his  (La  Tremoille's)  own  notorious  cousin,  Gille  de  Rais. 

After  the  signing  at  Troyes  in  1420  of  that  disastrous 
treaty  which  made  King  Henry  V.  of  England  heir  to 
the  French  crown,  France  became  divided  into  two 
hostile  kingdoms  :  roughly  speaking,  the  country  north 
of  the  Loire  acknowledged  the  King  of  England  and  was 
friendly  to  his  great  ally  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  while 
the  country  south  of  that  river  was  friendly  to  the 
Armagnacs  and  loyal  to  the  mad  King's  son,  the  Dauphin 
Charles,  known  as  "  the  King  of  Bourges,"  because  he 
made  that  city  his  capital.^ 

La  Tremoille  would  doubtless  have  preferred  to  remain 
a  free  lance,  independent  of  either  potentate  ;  but  recent 
events  had  shown  him  the  disadvantages  of  such  an 
attitude.  His  defeat  in  Auvergne  convinced  him  of  the 
prudence  of  throwing  in  his  lot  with  one  party  or  the 
other,  and  he  selected  the  Dauphin's  because  over  it, 
being  the  weaker,  he  would  have  the  best  chance  of 
domineering. 

La  Tremoille's   choice   was   fraught   with   the   direst 

1  Charles  VI.  and  Henry  V.  died  in  the  same  year,  1422.  Following 
the  custom  of  the  time,  we  shall  describe  Charles  VII.  as  Dauphin  until, 
in  1429,  he  was  crowned  by  Joan  of  Arc  at  Reims. 


26  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

consequences  for  France.  As  Councillor-Chamberlain  he 
came  to  exercise  over  the  Dauphin's  mind  the  most 
disastrous  influence.  In  the  years  which  preceded  La 
Tremoille's  rule  the  Prince  had  shown  himself  capable  of 
acting  with  wisdom  and  vigour,  after  La  Tremoille's  fall 
Charles  developed  into  a  wise  and  energetic  monarch  ; 
but  during  the  years  of  La  Tremoille's  ministry  he  was 
the  meanest,  the  most  phlegmatic,  and  the  most  abject  of 
princes.  That  this  monster  of  iniquity,  "  this  Gargantua 
who  devoured  the  country,"  did  not  succeed  in  per- 
manently ruining  France  is  chiefly  due  to  Joan  of  Arc's 
heroic  example  and  inspiring  initiative. 

Precisely  how  La  Tremoille  came  to  exercise  so 
pernicious  an  influence  over  the  Dauphin  is  somewhat 
mysterious.  The  first  sign  of  their  alliance  was  Charles's 
despatch  of  La  Tremoille  in  December,  1425,  on  an 
embassy  to  Burgundy  at  Bruges.  And  it  was  on  this 
journey,  that  at  the  hands  of  a  free  lance,  Perrinet  Gres- 
sart,  the  Dauphin's  emissary  suffered  that  fate  which  he 
had  so  often  inflicted  on  others  :  he  was  detained  in  the 
citadel  of  La  Charite  until  he  had  paid  Gressart  14,000 
crowns,  as  well  as  another  6,000  in  the  shape  of  gifts 
which  the  prisoner  was  compelled  to  bestow  on  the 
captains  and  wife  of  his  captor.  One  might  chuckle  ^vith 
delight  to  find  La  Tremoille  thus  being  paid  in  his  own 
coin,  did  not  the  ultimate  advantage  which  he  was 
careful  to  derive  from  his  imprisonment  suggest  that, 
after  all,  the  incident  had  been  planned  by  the  prisoner 
himself,  with  a  view  to  compensation.  For,  on  La 
Tremoille's  return  to  court  we  find  him  extracting  from 
the  Dauphin  the  greater  part  of  his  ransom  and  rich  lands 
in  Poitou^  to  boot,  while  no  less  than  seven  years  later 

The  lordship  and  bishopric  of  Melle. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  27 

this  same  imprisonment  gave  him  an  excuse  for  squeezing 
out  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  a  sum  of  18,000  crowns. 

Quitting  Perrinet  Gressart's  castle,  La  Tremoille  pro- 
ceeded to  Bruges.  Concerning  the  success  of  his  mission 
to  Duke  PhiHp '  we  know  nothing.  The  only  incident  of 
this  embassy  which  has  come  down  to  us  is  that  the 
Dauphin's  ambassador,  when  he  left  the  city,  carried 
away  with  him  the  wife  of  one  of  the  citizens,  who  in  the 
following  year  was  clamouring  to  be  restored  to  her 
husband.^ 

La  Tremoille,  nothing  daunted  by  his  failure  to  secure 
his  first  wife's  inheritance,  was  now  casting  about  for  her 
wealthy  successor.  One  of  the  most  richly  dowered 
ladies  of  the  Dauphin's  court  was  the  beautiful  Catherine 
de  rile  Bouchard,  Countess  of  Tonnerre.  She  happened 
to  be  married  already,  but  inconvenient  husbands  and 
wives  were  not  difficult  to  get  rid  of  in  those  days.  Indeed, 
Catherine's  husband,  Pierre  de  Giac,  had  himself  disposed 
of  her  predecessor  in  a  manner  almost  too  brutal  to  bear 
mention.  True,  Pierre  de  Giac  was  at  this  time  the 
Dauphin's  prime  favourite,  but  that  circumstance  pre- 
sented no  difficulty,  for  Charles  was  used  to  having  his 
favourites  forcibly  removed  ;  and  the  removal  of  this 
one  was  probably  facilitated  by  the  connivance  of  the 
favourite's  wife,  and  certainly  by  that  of  the  Constable, 
Arthur  de  Richemont.  The  manner  of  its  accomplish- 
ment was  characteristic  of  that  brutal  age. 

Giac  was  with  the  Dauphin  at  his  chateau  of  Issoudun, 
when,  on  the  morning  of  February  8th,  1427,  as  he  lay  in 
bed  with  his  wife,  Catherine,  the  favourite  was  rudely 
awakened  by  a  loud  knocking  at    his    door.     "  Who    is 

1  John  the  Fearless  had  been  murdered  in  141 9  on  the  Bridge  of 
Montereau. 
^  E.  Cosneau,  "  Le  Conn6table  de  Richemont,"  141,  note  4. 


28  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

there  ?  "  he  cried.  "  The  Constable/'  was  the  reply. 
*'  Then  I  am  a  dead  man,"  groaned  Giac,  who  knew 
Richemont  to  be  his  enemy.  The  door  was  broken 
open  and  the  favourite,  clad  only  in  nightgown  and 
shppers,  dragged  out  of  the  palace  and  placed  on  horse- 
back. Catherine  the  while  had  flown  to  her  jewel  chest, 
eager  to  secure  it  for  La  Tremoille,  who  was  probably 
already  her  lover.  Everything  was  done  as  quietly  as 
possible  for  fear  of  rousing  the  Dauphin,  who  was  strongly 
attached  to  his  favourite.  But  Charles  became  aware  of 
confusion  in  the  palace,  and  inquired  what  was  going 
forward.  He  was  told  that  what  was  happening  was  for 
his  good. 

Meanwhile,  Giac  had  been  hurried  off  to  the  chMeau  of 
Dun-le-Roi,  which  belonged  to  Richemont's  wife,  the 
Duchesse  de  Guyenne,  widow  of  the  Dauphin  Louis. 
Thence,  after  a  mock  trial,  an  executioner  having  been 
brought  from  Bourges,  Giac  was  cast  into  the  River 
Auron  and  drowned.  Meanwhile,  La  Tremoille  anxiously 
rode  to  and  fro  nearby,  impatient  for  news  that  Catherine's 
husband  had  ceased  to  breathe.  On  hearing  that  his 
mistress  was  free,  he  rode  to  join  her  in  her  castle  of  Meun, 
where  she  was  waiting  to  bestow  upon  him  the  jewels  she 
had  so  carefully  guarded  from  the  cupidity  of  her  husband's 
murderers.  After  spending  some  months  together  at 
Meun,  La  Tremoille  and  Catherine  repaired  to  the  former's 
chateau  of  Gen9ay  in  Poitou,  where  they  were  married  on 
July  2nd.  Their  wedding,  following  so  soon  on  Giac's 
death,  caused  some  astonishment  even  among  the 
Dauphin's  unscrupulous  courtiers,  who  thought  that 
Catherine  might  have  had  the  decency  to  wait  a  little 
longer  before  marrying  her  husband's  murderer. 

As  for  the  Dauphin  himself,  after  he  had  recovered 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  29 

from  his  first  indignation  at  his  favourite's  treatment,  he 
easily  consoled  himself  with  his  successor.  This  was 
an  obscure  person,  one  Camus  de  Vernet,  knight  of 
Beaulieu,  who  was  no  better  than  his  predecessor,  and 
who  came  to  as  untimely  an  end. 

After  the  assassination  of  Camus,  which  took  place 
before  the  Dauphin's  very  eyes,  La  Tr6moille  persuaded 
the  Constable  to  install  him  as  Charles's  chief  favourite. 

Arthur  de  Richemont,  one  of  the  few  disinterested 
barons  of  that  day,  despite  the  part  he  had  played  in 
Giac's  assassination,  was  in  many  respects  a  fine  figure. 
In  astuteness  and  insight  into  character,  however,  he  must 
have  been  deplorably  lacking,  or  he  would  never  have 
placed  in  a  position  of  such  power  so  rapacious  a  person 
as  La  Tremoille. 

The  Dauphin  was  wiser  than  his  Constable ;  for, 
trembling  to  see  Richemont  confide  in  La  Tremoille, 
Charles  said  :  "  You  will  repent  it,  for  I  know  him  better 
than  you  do."  To  this  feeble  remonstrance  the  Constable 
paid  no  heed  ;  but  alas  !  Charles's  words  proved  only  too 
true,  and  it  was  in  his  treatment  of  Richemont  himself 
that  La  Tremoille  first  verified  his  Prince's  prognostica- 
tion. The  Dauphin  was  cowed  into  banishing  the  Con- 
stable from  court  and  bestowing  his  governorship  of 
Dauphine  upon  his  rival. 

La  Tremoille  was  now  supreme ;  as  Councillor- 
Chamberlain,  for  six  years  he  ruled ;  and  he  was  one  of 
the  most  terrible  scourges  France  has  ever  known  ;  never, 
not  from  Clovis  to  Charles  X.,  have  the  national  fortunes 
sunk  so  low  as  during  that  six  years  of  La  Tremoille's 
power. 

With  half  France,  including  the  French  capital,  given 
up  to  the  English,  with  an  English  army  about  to  cross 


30  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

the  Loire  to  conquer  the  remaining  half,  La  Tremoille's 
only  thoughts  were  the  filling  of  his  private  purse  and  the 
avenging  of  his  private  quarrels. 

For  some  years  before  he  became  the  Dauphin's 
favourite  he  had  been  nothing  more  or  less  than  the 
Grand  Usurer  of  the  kingdom.  He  was  the  first  of  those 
great  tax-farmers,  those  leaches  who,  sucking  the  nation's 
life-blood,  were  to  prey  upon  the  national  exchequer. 
And  while  in  those  terrible  times  the  King  went  in  tatters 
and  brave  soldiers  of  the  Crown  and  disinterested  leaders 
remained  unpaid,  for  La  Tremoille  money  was  always 
forthcoming.  In  his  private  war  with  Richemont  and  his 
allies.  La  Tremoille,  taken  prisoner  in  the  Castle  of  Gen9ay, 
insisted  on  the  Dauphin  paying  his  ransom  to  the  tune  of 
10,000  crowns. 

Soon,  however,  even  while  the  Councillor-Chamberlain 
with  havoc  and  vvdth  bloodshed  was  rending  the  fair 
realm  of  France,  there  appeared  in  more  than  one  quarter 
of  the  kingdom  signs  of  a  new  spirit  which  was  ultimately 
to  defeat  La  Tremoille  and  all  his  nefarious  projects. 
The  outrages  of  the  barons  and  the  invasion  of  a  foreign 
foe  gave  birth  among  the  oppressed  and  the  conquered  to 
a  sentiment  of  nationaUty,  which  was  even  now  reveahng 
itself  in  different  parts  of  the  country  :  on  the  Loire, 
where  the  neighbouring  towns  were  straining  every  nerve 
to  succour  the  gallant  citizens  of  Orleans  besieged  by  the 
English ;  in  the  Dauphin's  own  circle,  where  his  mother- 
in-law,  Yolande  of  Arragon,  Duchess  of  Anjou,  and  Queen 
of  Jerusalem  and  Sicily,  one  of  the  best  and  bravest 
women  of  her  time,  with  political  insight  and  pity  for  her 
persecuted  country,  was  devising  La  Tremoille's  fall ; 
and  in  distant  Lorraine,  whence  a  peasant  maid  at  the 
behest  of  heavenly  voices  was  setting  forth  to  deHver  France. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  31 

One  isolated  good  deed,  but  that  a  purely  negative  and 
an  unconsciously  meritorious  one,  may  be  placed  to  La 
Tremoille's  account :  he  offered  no  opposition  to  Joan  of 
Arc's  employment  in  the  Dauphin's  service,  and  dispatch 
to  the  relief  of  Orleans. 

Joan  at  her  trial  related  that  La  Tremoille  was  present 
among  the  crowd  of  courtiers  round  the  Dauphin  in  the 
castle  of  Chinon  on  that  evening  in  March,  1429,  when, 
clad  in  doublet  and  hose,  with  her  hair  cut  round  like  a 
boy's,  the  maid  was  ushered  into  her  Prince's  presence. 
A  few  days  later,  one  morning  after  mass.  La  Tremoille 
^vith  the  Dauphin  and  the  Duke  of  Alen9on  had  a  private 
interview  with  her.  Then  he  heard  her  promise  the 
Dauphin  that  the  King  of  Heaven  would  do  for  Charles 
what  He  had  done  for  his  predecessors,  and  restore  him 
to  his  father's  dominions. 

After  events  prove  that  such  a  consummation  was 
far  from  the  Councillor-Chamberlain's  desire.  All  he 
expected  Joan  to  do  was  to  restore  French  courage  and 
initiative  so  far  as  to  enable  them  to  continue  the  conflict 
with  the  English.  La  Tremoille  wished  neither  com- 
batant to  be  completely  victorious ;  but  when  Joan 
appeared,  there  seemed  a  danger  that  the  EngUsh  would 
establish  their  dominion  throughout  the  land.  It  was  to 
avert  what  would  have  been  a  personal  catastrophe  as 
well  as  a  national  disaster  that  La  Tremoille  received  Joan 
and  sent  her  with  an  army  to  relieve  Orleans. 

But  after  her  glorious  victory  at  that  city,  followed  by 
a  month  of  marvellous  successes  in  the  Loire  valley,  La 
Tremoille,  fearing  lest  Joan  should  cast  the  weight  of 
conquest  too  strongly  on  his  own,  the  French  side, 
began  to  oppose  her  and  her  forward  policy.  The  first 
conflict  between  the   Maid   and  the  Minister   occurred 


32  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

over  the  question  of  the  Constable's  restoration  to 
power. 

During  the  Loire  campaign,  La  Tremoille  had  held 
aloof  from  the  army,  keeping  watch  and  ward  over  the 
Dauphin,  jealous  lest  he  should  fall  under  the  influence  of 
some  rival  favourite,  detaining  the  Prince  in  one  of  the 
Loire  chateaux,  most  of  the  time  in  the  great  La  Tremoille 
stronghold  of  Sully.  During  the  Minister's  absence,  and 
directly  contrary  to  his  command,  Arthur  de  Richemont, 
with  a  company  of  Breton  troops,  had  been  permitted  to 
serve  in  the  royal  army,  and  to  take  part  in  the  crowning 
victory  of  Pathay.^  No  sooner  was  the  battle  won,  than 
in  their  gladness  and  gratitude  to  the  Constable  for  the 
aid  he  had  generously  granted  them,  Joan  and  the  Duke 
of  Alen9on  solicited  Richemont's  recall.  It  is  the 
unanimous  opinion  of  expert  historians,  that  had  this 
request  been  granted,  had  the  Dauphin's  army  made 
common  cause  with  the  troops  which  Richemont  and  his 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Brittany,  could  raise  in  western 
France,  the  English  might  speedily  have  been  driven 
from  the  country.  But  La  Tremoille  was  determined  not 
to  be  reconciled  with  his  rival ;  and  at  his  Minister's 
bidding,  the  Dauphin  resolutely  refused  the  Maid*5 
request. 

It  now  became  obvious  that  as  long  as  La  Tremoille 
remained  in  power  the  complete  discomfiture  of  the 
English  would  be  impossible.  In  the  Dauphin's  council 
there  were  now  two  parties  and  two  policies  :  a  forward 
policy  advocated  by  Joan^  and  Alengon,  her  "  fair  Duke," 

1  June,  1429.  For  a  picturesque  account  of  the  meeting  of  the  Maid 
and  the  Constable,  see  Anatole  France,  "  Joan  of  Arc,"  Eng.  trans.  I., 

364- 

2  Joan  was  seldom  actually  admitted  to  the  councils  of  war.  She 
had,  therefore,  to  rely  upon  Alen9on  to  advocate  her  views,  which  he 
did  loyally. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  33 

as  she  called  him  ;  and  a  temporising  policy  advocated 
by  La  Tremoille  and  his  ally,  the  Dauphin's  Chancellor, 
Regnault  de  Chartres,  Archbishop  of  Reims. 

On  one  point  the  forward  party  won  the  day  :    they 
succeeded,  possibly  against  the  will  of  the  Chancellor 
and  the   Chamberlain,^  in  conducting  the  Dauphin  to 
Reims  for  his  coronation.      But  on  the  way  to  Reims  the 
two  parties  were  in  constant  conflict,  in  which  Joan  was 
generally    worsted.     The    Maid    was    for    storming    the 
hostile  cities  which  refused  to  admit  the  Dauphin's  army 
within  their  gates  ;    but  here  for  the  most    part,  and 
notably  at  Auxerre  and  Troyes,  La  Tremoille  imposed 
his  more  moderate  policy,  from  which,  as  usual,  he  reaped 
personal   advantage  ;    in  the  case  of  Auxerre,   at  any 
rate,   the   2,000  crowns   paid  by  the    citizens  in  return 
for  a    promise  not  to  storm  the  town  were  pocketed 
by    the    Minister.      After    the    coronation    dissensions 
between  the  parties  broke  out  anew,  Joan  and  "  her 
fair  Duke  "    and  a  powerful  faction  of  the  nobility  were 
for  marching  straight  on  Paris  ;    La  Tremoille,  whom 
Charles  at  his  crowning  had  created  Count,  wished  to 
return  to  the  south  of  the  Loire  and  to  negotiate  with 
Burgundy.     Now,  as  always,  the  Chamberlain  had  his 
private  advantage  in  view  ;  through  Burgundy's  influence 
Georges  wished  to    recover    certain    Burgundian   lands, 
formerly  belonging  to  him,  which  the  Duke  of  Bedford 
had  conquered  and  bestowed  on  La  Tremoille 's  younger 
brother,  the  Sieur  de  Jonvelle.     In  achieving  the  second 
part  of  his  project  the  Minister  was  partially  successful, 
and  a  truce  for  fifteen  days,  afterwards  prolonged,  was 
signed  with  Burgundy.     But  in  the  first  of  his  designs 
he  was  thwarted  by  the  EngHsh,  who  cut  off  the  retreat 

1  This  matter  is  obscure  and  has  been  much  discussed. 
C.R.  D 


34  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

of  the  French  towards  the  south.  Thus,  much  against 
their  will,  Charles  and  La  Tremoille  were  forced  into  the 
neighbourhood  of  Paris,  where  a  series  of  skirmishes  took 
place  with  the  English,  under  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  who 
was  Regent  for  the  infant  King,  Henry  VI. 

In  one  of  these  skirmishes  at  Crepy-en-Valois,  France 
came  near  to  being  delivered  from  her  oppressor,  for 
La  Tremoille,  contrary  to  his  custom  of  keeping  out  of 
action,  mounted  a  charger  richly  caparisoned,  and,  lance 
in  hand,  rode  into  the  heart  of  the  meleo.  There,  falling 
from  his  horse,  he  would  have  been  slain  had  not  some 
misguided  Frenchman  come  to  his  aid. 

Still  avoiding  Paris,  Charles,  after  Crepy,  entered 
Compiegne.^  And  there  La  Tremoille  re-opened  negotia- 
tions with  Burgundy,  attempting  to  detach  him  from  the 
English  alliance,  by  offering  to  make  him  master  of 
Compiegne.  But  the  citizens  of  the  town  refused  to  be 
handed  over  to  the  Duke.  Then,  rather  than  come  to  a 
rupture  with  Philip,  La  Tremoille  carried  out  one  of  the 
most  amazing  pieces  of  diplomacy  known  in  history  : 
towards  the  end  of  August,  Joan  and  "  her  fair  Duke  " 
had  left  Compiegne  with  the  object  of  attacking  Paris, 
of  which  city  the  English  had  appointed  Philip  governor  ; 
after  their  departure  La  Tremoille  and  Charles  seem  to 
have  promised  Burgundy  that  the  attack  on  Paris  should 
not  be  seriously  prosecuted,  and  on  this  condition  the 
truce  was  renewed. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  operations  were 
somewhat  desultory  when,  on  September  8th,  an  attempt 
was  made  to  storm  the  capital.  In  vain  Joan,  standing 
on  a  mound  outside  the  St.  Honore  Gate,  called  on  the 
citizens  to  surrender  in  Jesus'  name,  threatening,  if  they 

1  On  August  1 8th,  1429. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  35 

yielded  not  before  nightfall,  to  enter  by  force  and  put  all 
to  death  without  mercy.  Joan  knew  nothing  of  the 
negotiations  at  Compiegne.  But  at  nightfall,  instead 
of,  as  she  had  hoped,  entering  triumphantly  into  Paris, 
the  Maid  lay  wounded  beneath  the  shelter  of  a  breast- 
work, urging  her  men  to  fill  up  the  moat  with  faggots 
and  to  storm  the  gates  of  the  city.  La  Tremoille,  however, 
was  commanding  the  combatants  to  retreat.  Joan 
refused  to  obey  him,  until  her  Duke  sent  for  her,  and  even 
then,  as  two  knights  carried  her  off  the  field,  she  was 
murmuring,  "  In  God's  name,  the  city  might  have 
been   taken. '* 

It  did  not  accord  with  La  Tremoille's  purpose  that 
Paris  should  be  taken,  or  that  Joan  should  win  any  more 
decisive  victories.  Therefore  he  persuaded  Charles  to 
refuse  Alengon's  request  that  the  Maid  might  be  sent 
with  him  to  cut  off  the  base  of  the  enemy's  communications 
in  Normandy,  and  he  kept  her  in  the  Loire  valley,  where 
there  was  no  chance  of  her  being  able  to  strike  a  decisive 
blow.  Here,  although  but  ill  supported,  Joan,  by  her 
heroism  and  persistence,  succeeded  in  taking  by  storm 
the  town  of  St.  Pierre-le-Moustier,  but  she  was  repulsed 
at  La  Charite. 

Even  such  partial  success  was  not  to  La  Tremoille's 
liking.  Therefore  for  some  weeks  in  the  spring  of  1430, 
he  detained  the  Maid  with  the  King  and  himself  in  his 
castle  of  Sully.  Many  a  time  during  those  weary 
weeks  of  waiting  must  Joan  have  gazed  regretfully  from 
the  towers  of  Sully  up  that  great  northern  road  leading 
to  Paris  and  to  those  fields  of  battle,  whither  she  longed 
to  return. 

At  length,  in  the  last  days  of  March,  the  Maid,  with  a 
small  body  of  soldiers,  was  permitted  to  fare  forth. 

D  2 


36  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

La  Tremoille's  hopes  of  a  compact  with  Burgundy  had 
been  finally  disappointed  by  a  renewal  of  the  alliance 
between  Duke  Philip  and  England.  And  so  Joan  was 
left  free  to  open  that  last  campaign  which  was  to  end 
in  her  capture  by  the  Burgundians  outside  the  walls  of 
Compiegne. 

There  are  those  who  do  not  hesitate  to  accuse  La 
Tremoille  of  having  planned  the  capture  of  the  Maid. 
That  at  almost  every  turn  he  had  thwarted  her  patriotic 
designs  there  is  no  doubt  whatever,  but  that  he  deliber- 
ately betrayed  her  into  the  hands  of  the  Burgundians 
has  never  been  sufficiently  proved.  The  Chamberlain's 
record  is  black  enough  without  this  charge  being  laid 
to  his  door. 

If  from  such  a  crime  he  may  be  exonerated  there  is, 
however,  another  offence  towards  the  Maid,  and  one 
equally  heinous,  of  which  he  must  be  accused.  In  the 
cruel  indifference  to  Joan's  fate  displayed  by  the  King 
and  his  council,  we  cannot  fail  to  trace  the  influence  of 
La  Tremoille.  During  the  year  which  elapsed  between 
her  capture  at  Compiegne  in  May,  1430,  and  her  execution 
at  Rouen  in  May,  1431,  not  an  effort  was  made  for  her 
deliverance.  La  Tremoille  was  then  all  powerful  at 
court,  and  had  he  made  the  slightest  movement  either 
diplomatic  or  military  for  Joan's  rescue  he  would  doubt- 
less have  been  seconded  by  many  among  the  King's 
nobles.  But  for  the  Chamberlain  the  Maid  was  nothing 
more  than  a  kind  of  charm,  a  figure-head  to  encourage 
the  army.  And,  Joan  taken,  any  other  charm  would 
do  equally  well,  a  shepherd-boy  with  stigmata  from  the 
heaths  of  Gevaudan  or  a  devout  woman  from  La  Rochelle, 
one  of  the  Maid's  own  companions. 

Fortunately  for  France  the  years  of  La  Tremoille's 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  37 

power  were  already  numbered.  His  increasing  arrogance 
and  greed  were  raising  against  him  among  the  French 
nobility  a  powerful  party  led  by  Queen  Yolande,  the 
Constable  and  the  Constable's  brother,  John,  Duke  of 
Brittany.  At  the  close  of  one  of  the  Chamberlain's 
devastating  private  wars  against  Richemont,  Queen 
Yolande  negotiated  a  treaty  by  which  La  Tremoille  was 
to  deliver  the  town  of  Montargis  to  the  Constable.  But 
before  the  surrender  of  the  town  took  place  it  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  English,  and — so  it  was  believed — with  the 
connivance  of  the  Chamberlain. 

So  dastardly  a  deed  brought  to  a  head  the  hatred  of 
the  King's  favourite.  In  the  same  year,  1431,  at  the 
funeral  of  the  Duchess  of  Brittany,  which  took  place  at 
Vannes,  a  plot  was  formed  against  La  Tremoille's  life. 
It  took  effect  in  the  following  June  (1433),  when  the 
Chamberlain  was  with  the  King  at  Chinon,  lodged  in 
that  very  Coudray  Tower  which  had  sheltered  Joan  four 
years  earlier.  Admitted  to  the  tower  by  night  through 
a  postern  gate,  four  of  the  conspirators,  among  whom  was 
La  Tremoille's  own  nephew,  Jean  de  Bueil,^  followed  by 
some  twenty  men-at-arms,  made  their  way  to  the 
Chamberlain's  room.  There,  in  the  struggle  which 
ensued,  La  Tremoille  received  a  sword-thrust  in  the 
stomach  ;  but  like  the  wicked  of  the  Psalmist,  "  enclosed 
in  his  own  fat,"  for  he  was  a  very  barrel  of  a  man,  his 
"  Falstafhan  paunch "  saved  his  life.  And  Jean  de 
Bueil  was  content  to  carry  him  off  a  prisoner  to  the 
Chateau  of  Montresor.  There  he  who  had  so  often 
exacted  an  exorbitant  ransom  from  others  was  him- 
self compelled  to  buy  his  liberty  with  4,000  crowns 
and  a  promise  to  keep  away  from  the  King  and  from 

*  His  father  was  La  Tremoille's  brother,  the  Sieur  de  Jonvelle. 


38  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

affairs  of  state.  The  King's  quarters  at  Chinon  were 
almost  opposite  his  favourite's,  and,  as  at  the  time 
of  Pierre  de  Giac's  arrest,  Charles  was  roused  in  the 
night  by  the  sound  of  mailed  feet  and  the  clashing  of 
arms.  But  once  again  it  was  not  difficult  to  per- 
suade him  that  the  disturbance  augured  nothing  but 
good.  And  we  cannot  beHeve  that  Charles  grieved 
at  being  rid  of  this  monster  who  was  devouring  his 
kingdom. 

Queen  Yolande  had  now  no  one  to  oppose  her  beneficent 
designs  :  she  was  able  therefore  to  restore  the  Constable 
to  power,  to  encourage  Charles  to  adopt  as  his  favourite 
her  own  son,  Charles  of  Anjou,  and  to  receive  as  his 
mistress  the  famous  and  fascinating  Agnes  Sorel. 

Under  Angevin  influence  the  King  became  a  new  man, 
displaying  energy,  prudence  and  courage,  and  appearing 
the  precise  contrary  of  that  roi  faineant  who  used,  in 
La  Tremoille's  day,  to  skulk  in  some  distant  castle  far 
removed  from  the  enemy  and  the  battlefield. 

Under  the  rule  of  this  new  Charles  VII.,  resistance  to 
the  English  was  vigorously  organised,  Paris  was  taken, 
peace  made  with  Burgundy,  and  the  invaders  driven 
back  until  they  retained  only  the  maritime  provinces ; 
at  the  same  time  the  power  of  the  turbulent  French 
barons  was  curbed,  and  that  work  of  centralisation  begun 
which  was  carried  on  and  completed  by  Charles's  great 
successors,  Louis  XL,  Henry  IV.  and  Louis  XIV. 

Not  without  a  struggle,  however,  was  this  great  work 
inaugurated.  On  his  vast  domains  in  Poitou,  Limousin, 
Anjou,  Touraine  and  Berry,  La  Tremoille  was  still 
powerful  ;  Jean  de  Bueil's  mercy — or  was  it  his 
greed  for  the  4,000  crowns  ransom  ? — had  left  the 
monster's  wings  insufficiently  cHpped.     His  castles  were 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  39 

centres  of  brigandage  and  sedition  to  which  resorted  all 
the  discontented  nobles  of  the  realm.  Here  was  hatched 
that  wide-spreading  revolt  of  the  French  barons  known  as 
"  the  Praguerie."  ^  The  immediate  cause  of  this  rising 
was  the  royal  ordonnance  issued  in  1439,  which  summoned 
before  the  King's  court  all  barons  who  in  defiance  of  the 
King  had  arrogated  to  themselves  the  right  to  impose 
taxes  in  their  dominions,  who  had  appropriated  the  royal 
taxes  or  interfered  with  their  collection.  The  ordonnance 
was  clearly  aimed  against  La  Tremoille  and  his  associates  ; 
and  it  was  the  signal  for  their  concerted  movement 
against  the  Crown. 

The  barons  chose  for  their  leader  no  less  a  per- 
sonage than  the  Dauphin,  the  King's  own  son,  who 
later  as  Louis  XL  was  to  prove  the  most  formidable  foe 
to  those  ambitions  of  the  nobility  which  he  was  now 
furthering. 

Louis  demanded  that  the  control  of  public  affairs 
should  be  placed  in  his  hands.  To  the  standard  of  revolt 
which  he  raised  at  Blois  in  1440,  flocked  not  only  barons 
but  princes  of  the  blood  royal,  among  them  Joan's 
*'  fair  Duke,"  Alengon,  while  from  Poitou  La  Tremoille 
wrote  that  he  would  command  the  forces  of  the  rebels 
in  that  province. 

It  seemed  as  if  the  fire  of  civil  strife  were  about  to  be 
rekindled  throughout  the  kingdom.  But  the  promp- 
titude and  vigour  of  the  King  and  his  Constable  imme- 
diately quenched  the  flame.  Rightly  regarding  La 
Tremoille's  rising  in  Poitou  as  the  focus  of  discontent, 
Charles  and  Richemont  marched  straight  into  that 
province,  and  in  a  few  weeks  from  the  raising  of  the  rebel 

1  After  the  Hussite  rebellion  in  Bohemia,  which  some  time  before 
had  centred  at  Prague. 


40  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

standard  sedition  was  completely  quelled,  and  the  barons 
were  summoned  to  appear  before  the  King's  court. 
Among  the  rebels  there  was  one  whom  the  King  refused 
to  see  :  La  Tremoille  he  would  not  admit  to  his  presence. 
But  this  wily  baron,  ever  eager  to  safeguard  his  own 
interest,  had  obtained  in  writing  from  the  Dauphin  a 
promise  of  his  support,  and  a  guarantee  that  as  long  as 
he  lived  he  should  enjoy  his  pension  and  other  revenues. 
In  accordance  with  this  undertaking  Louis  refused  to 
submit  to  his  royal  father  unless  the  King  agreed  to 
pardon  La  Tremoille.  Charles,  however,  refused  to 
grant  his  son's  demand.  *'  Then  I  shall  go  back  with 
the  rebels,"  said  Louis.  "  The  doors  are  open  to  you," 
replied  the  King,  "  and  if  they  are  not  wide  enough,  I 
will  cause  some  hundred  feet  of  the  wall  to  be  broken 
down  so  that  you  may  pass  through  at  your  will." 
Charles's  firmness  won  the  day,  and  reduced  all  the 
revolted  barons  to  submission. 

As  long  as  La  Tremoille  lived,  however,  Poitou  con- 
tinued a  centre  of  discontent.  In  1442,  Charles  was 
compelled  again  to  proceed  in  person  against  his  former 
favourite,  and  to  capture  several  of  his  strongholds. 
Nevertheless,  the  Chamberlain  continued  his  old  work, 
and,  in  1446,  an  action  was  brought  against  him  in  the 
King's  court  for  spoliation  and  homicide.  Yet,  but  a 
short  time  afterwards,  in  March  that  year,  when  the  new 
Duke  of  Brittany,  Francis  I.,  came  to  render  homage 
to  King  Charles,  we  find  La  Tremoille  appearing  once 
more  at  court  in  all  the  state  of  his  high  office  of  CounciUor- 
Chamberlain.  In  the  following  May,  a  pardon  for  all 
past  offences,  which  fifteen  years  earlier  he  had  wrested 
from  his  docile  master,  was  registered  among  the  royal 
charters. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  41 

But  possibly  by  that  time  the  culprit  was  already 
beyond  the  reach  of  any  human  pardon,  for  on  the 
6th  of  that  month  La  Tremoille  expired  in  his  castle  of 
Sully,  where  he  was  buried  ;  and  France  was  delivered 
from  one  of  the  most  terrible  of  her  oppressors. 


42        FROM  THE  CRUSADES 


CHAPTER  HI 

TWO  LOYAL   SERVANTS   OF  KING  LOUIS   XI 

LOUIS    DE    LA   TREMOILLE,    DIED    I481. 
GEORGES    DE    LA   TREMOILLE,    SEIGNEUR    DE    CRAON,    DIED    I483. 

Later  La  Tremoilles  were  hardly  proud  of  their  notori- 
ous ancestor.  From  the  recesses  of  the  family  cupboard, 
down  through  succeeding  ages,  the  bloated  features  of 
the  Councillor-Chamberlain,  "  that  toper,  that  barrel 
of  a  man/'  grinning  like  an  ogre,  haunted  his  posterity. 
His  very  physical  semblance  was  abhorred,  and  when- 
ever one  of  his  descendants  began  to  display  a  tendency 
to  his  forbear's  corpulence  it  was  striven  against  by 
violent  exercises  worthy  of  a  mediaeval  Sandow. 

Fortunately  for  France  and  for  the  La  Tremoilles, 
while  the  Chamberlain's  physical  features  reproduced 
themselves  in  his  sons,  his  grandsons,  and  even  his  great- 
grandson,  this  was  not  the  case  with  his  character  ; 
and  it  is  only  in  his  remote  descendant,  Catherine 
de  Medicis,^  in  her  unscrupulous  egoism  and  in  her 
disruptive  policy,  that  Georges'  moral  defects  were 
continued.  Meanwhile,  for  the  sins  of  their  father  and 
grandfather,  La  Tremoilles  were  striving  to  atone  by 
the  loyalty  and  courage  with  which  they  served  the 
French  crown  and  the  French  nation. 

The    Chamberlain's   two   sons — Louis,  and  especially 

*  See  genealogical  table,  p.  43,  n. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  43 

his  second  son,  a  second  Georges,  the  famous  Seigneur 
de  Craon — as  loyal  servants  of  King  Louis  XL  did  their 
best  to  destroy  their  father's  wicked  work,  and  out  of 
that  chaos  for  which  he  was  largely  responsible,  to  create 
a  new  French  nation,  the  most  compact,  the  most  har- 
monious, and  the  most  united  in  Europe. 

When  the  Councillor-Chamberlain  died,  his  wife 
Catherine  was  still  living.  She  resided  in  her  lordly 
castle  of  lie  Bouchart.  And  there,  though  her  sons 
were  well  past  the  age  when  boys  were  accustomed 
to  escape  from  their  mother's  control,  she  kept  them 
in  tutelage,  expecting  them  to  obey  a  poor  relation, 
one  Pean  de  la  Vallee,  whom  she  had  set  over  her  house- 
hold. Louis  and  Georges,  already  chafing  beneath  the 
maternal  yoke,  absolutely  refused  submission  to  their 
mother's  steward,  who  by  his  malgracieux  treatment 
of  the  youths  drove  them  to  flee  from  lie  Bouchart, 
Louis  to  his  chateau  of  Bommiers  in  Berry,  Georges  to 
the  court  of  Duke  Philip  at  Brussels.     Thence,  after  a 


Genealogical  Table  showing  the  Descent  of   Catherine  de 
Medicis  from  Georges  de  La  Tremoille. 

Georges  de  La  Tremoille 

I 

Louis  I.       Georges,      Louise  m.  Bertrand  VL,  Comte  d'Auvergne 
Seigneur  et    de    Boulogne,  grandson    of 

de  Craon  Marie     d'Auvergne,    Jeanne 

d'Auvergne's  cousin. 

Jean  de"  La  Tour,  Comte  d'Auvergne,  in. 
Jeanne  de  Bourbon. 

Madeleine  de  La  Tour,  m.  (Jan.,  1518)  Lorenzo 
di  Medici,  Duke  of 
Urbino. 

Catherine'  de  Medicis. 


44  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

while,  Georges  was  induced  to  return  to  He  Bouchart  by 
his  mother's  promise  to  marry  him  to  a  wealthy  heiress, 
the  daughter  of  the  Seneschal  of  Normandy.  On  inquiry, 
however,  the  conditions  of  this  marriage  proved  to  be 
less  advantageous  than  the  young  Seigneur  de  Craon 
had  believed.  Still,  he  stayed  on  at  his  mother's  castle, 
apparently  plotting  against  her  steward,  for,  at  a  hunting 
party  in  1458,  Georges  took  Pean  prisoner  and  carried 
him  off  to  Burgundy.  There,  on  the  steward's  promising 
to  break  off  all  relations  with  the  Countess,  Craon  set  him 
at  liberty.  But  no  sooner  was  Pean  free  than  he  cited  his 
captor  to  appear  and  answer  for  his  violence  before  the 
chief  magistrate  of  Touraine  at  Chinon.  Georges,  how- 
ever, pleading  ill-health  as  a  reason  for  his  non-appearance, 
appealed  to  the  King  to  pardon  him  ;  and  in  this  appeal 
he  was  supported  by  his  mother,  who  may  have  grown 
as  tired  of  her  old  favourite  as  many  years  previously  she 
had  done  of  her  first  husband.  Charles  VII.  granted 
the  pardon.  And  in  the  document  which  awarded 
it  may  be  read  all  the  incidents  of  the  Seigneur 
de  Craon's  quarrel  with  his  mother's  steward,  related, 
it  must  be  remembered,  entirely  from  Craon's  point 
of  view. 

Like  his  great  contemporary,  the  historian,  Philippe  de 
Commines,  Georges  de  Craon  having  first  served  the 
Dukes  of  Burgundy,  Philip  the  Good  and  his  son  Charles 
the  Rash,  transferred  his  allegiance  to  their  mortal 
enemy,  the  King  of  France,  Louis  XL,  who  succeeded 
to  the  throne  in  1461. 

For  nine  years,  from  1468  till  1477,  Craon,  alike  in  the 
council-chamber  and  on  the  battle-field,  was  one  of 
King  Louis'  most  effective  instruments  in  that  long  struggle 
with  Duke  Charles  of  Burgundy,  whose  defeat  and  death 


ALL   THAT    REMAINS   OF   THE   CASTLE   OF    L'    ILE    BOUCHART 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  45 

at  the  battle  of  Nancy  was  to  be  one  of  the  chief  corner- 
stones in  the  building  of  modern  France. 

It  was  during  the  sack  of  Liege,  in  1468,  that  Craon 
and  King  Louis  met  and  came  to  terms.  The  King 
shortly  before,  having  gone  to  Peronne  to  confer  with 
his  enemy,  had  there  been  taken  prisoner  and  only  released 
in  exchange  for  a  promise  to  aid  Burgundy  in  besieging 
the  town  of  Liege.  At  this  siege  Craon  was  present  in 
command  of  a  Burgundian  company  and  charged  with 
defending  the  outposts.  In  this  capacity  he  gallantly 
repulsed  a  night  sortie,  pursuing  the  besieged  within 
the  gates  and  thus  giving  the  signal  for  a  general  attack, 
which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  the  city. 

Struck  with  admiration  of  La  Tremoille's  prowess, 
Louis  determined  to  win  him  for  his  own  service.  What 
means  he  employed,  whether  he  offered  bribes  in  the  form 
of  high  ofhce  and  rich  lands,  or  whether  he  relied  solely 
on  his  own  magnetic  personality  and  power  of  persuasion 
we  do  not  know.  At  any  rate,  he  induced  Georges  de 
Craon  to  forsake  the  Duke  ;  and  straightway  the  Seigneur 
was  admitted  to  the  King's  Council  and  created  Lord 
High  Chamberlain. 

More  a  conflict  of  keen  wits  than  of  weapons  of  war 
was  this  duel  between  France  and  Burgundy.  The  diminu- 
tive figure  of  Louis  XL,  his  foxy  face,  with  its  hawk-like 
nose,  its  sly  eyes  and  thin  lips,  suggest  the  diplomatist 
rather  than  the  warrior.  More  than  once  a  great  army 
was  discomfited  by  Louis'  wiles.  And  Craon  was  almost 
as  able  a  diplomatist  as  his  master.  La  Tremoille  was 
present  at  that  mysterious  interview  on  a  bridge  over 
the  Somme,  which  resulted  in  the  Treaty  of  Picquigny, 
when  the  sovereigns  of  England  and  France  leered  at 
one  another  through  a  barrier  of  lattice-work,  and  the 


46  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

English  King  was  induced,  without  striking  a  blow,  to 
withdraw  his  lordly  host  from  French  territory. 

But  the  Seigneur  deCraon's  two  most  brilliant  diplomatic 
achievements  were  the  winning  for  France  of  two  powerful 
allies,  Rene  11.,^  Duke  of  Lorraine,  and  the  Confederation 
of  the  Swiss  Cantons. 

One  of  Duke  Charles's  ambitious  projects  was  the 
conquest  of  Lorraine,  which,  extending  as  it  did  from 
Verdun  on  the  north  to  Franche  Comte  on  the  south,  cut 
his  Burgundian  possessions  in  two.  Craon,  who  was 
then  Governor  of  Champagne,  was  the  Duke  of  Lorraine's 
neighbour.  This  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  working  on 
Rene's  fears  of  Burgundian  conquest,  and  on  his  hopes  of 
French  reward,  and  by  these  means  of  winning,  in  the 
year  1474,  his  alliance  for  Louis  XL  Then,  in  conjunction 
with  Rene,  Craon  laid  siege  to  Pierre  Fort  and  captured 
this  Burgundian  stronghold,  which  was  but  five  miles 
from  the  Lotharingian  capital  of  Nancy.  Duke  Charles, 
however,  retaliated  by  overrunning  Lorraine  and  annexing 
it.  Now  it  seemed  as  if  Rene  had  done  a  foolish  thing  in 
throwing  in  his  lot  with  the  French  King.  But  Rene's 
day  of  vengeance  was  to  come. 

Meanwhile,  Craon  had  been  contracting  that  other 
alliance,  with  the  Swiss  Cantons.  Liberally  bribed  with 
French  gold,  the  Swiss  entered  into  a  covenant  with  King 
Louis  for  ten  years,  and  in  the  autumn  of  this  same  year, 
1474,  invaded  the  Burgundian  province  of  Franche  Comte, 
defeating  the  Burgundians  at  Hericourt  and  sacking 
Pontarlier.  Two  years  later  Charles,  uniting  all  his 
forces  against  the  Cantons,  met  the  Swiss  near  Lake 
Neufchatel,  where  he  suffered  two  serious  defeats  at 
their  hands  in  the  battles  of  Grandson  and  Morat. 

1  Reigned  from  1473 — 1508. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  47 

Before  Burgundy  could  recover  from  these  disasters, 
Rene  had  begun  to  reconquer  his  duchy  ;  he  had  already 
recaptured  Nancy  and  other  fortresses  when  Charles  led 
an  army  against  him.  On  January  5th,  1477,  beneath 
the  walls  of  his  capital,  Rene  at  the  head  of  a  Swiss  army 
inflicted  a  crushing  defeat  upon  the  Duke  of  Burgundy. 
Already  the  two  alliances  negotiated  by  the  Sire  de  Craon 
had  served  their  purpose  :  Lorraine  was  safe  from 
Burgundian  ambition  and  the  power  of  Charles  le 
Temeraire  lay  in  the  dust. 

At  the  close  of  the  battle,  the  Duke  himself  was  missing. 
His  fate  was  uncertain  ;  and  in  the  letter  which  the  Sire 
de  Craon  despatched  to  his  royal  master,  all  he  could  tell 
was  that  Burgundy  had  suffered  a  crushing  defeat.  But 
that  was  good  enough  for  Louis  ;  whether  Charles  were 
ahve  or  dead,  these  tidings  filled  the  King  with  exaltation. 
And  straightway,  by  that  royal  post  which  he  was  the 
first  to  institute  in  France,  he  despatched  to  his  Governor, 
Craon,  the  following  letter  : — 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte,  my  friend,  I  have  received  your 
letters,  and  heard  the  good  news  they  contain,  for  which 
I  thank  you  with  all  my  heart.  Now  is  the  time  to  employ 
all  your  five  natural  senses  in  order  to  put  the  duchy  and 
county  of  Burgundy  into  my  hands.  And,  if  so  be  that 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy  is  dead,  then  as  Governor  of 
Champagne,  enter  the  said  country  with  your  army,  and, 
as  you  love  me  dear,  hold  it  for  me.  Among  your  men- 
at-arms  keep  order  as  if  you  were  in  Paris,  and  prove  to 
the  inhabitants  that  I  intend  to  treat  them  as  well  as  any 
of  my  subjects. 

"  With  regard  to  our  goddaughter,^  I  intend  to  conclude 
the  marriage,  which  already  I  have  negotiated,  between 
her  and  my  Lord  the  Dauphin. 

^  Mary,  daughter  of  Charles  the  Rash,  and  his  heiress,  for  he  left  no 
son.     She  afterwards  married  Maximilian  of  Austria,  later  Emperor. 


48  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

"  My  lord  Count,  I  do  not  wish  you  to  enter  the  afore- 
said countries  or  to  mention  the  above  in  the  case  that 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy  should  be  still  hving.  And  in  this 
matter  I  trust  to  you  to  serve  me. 

"  Farewell.  Written  at  Plessis-du  Pare/  the  9th  of 
January. 

Signed   "  Louis.''  ^ 

The  messenger  who  bore  this  letter  met  upon  the  road 
another  messenger  from  the  Sire  de  Craon,  who  was 
travelling  to  the  King  with  the  news  of  his  great  enemy's 
death.  For  a  whole  day  after  the  battle  the  Duke's  fate 
was  unknown.  The  engagement  was  fought  on  a  Sunday, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  following  Monday  evening  that 
there  was  brought  to  Duke  Rene  an  Itahan  page  who  told 
how  he  had  seen  Burgundy  fall.  After  a  long  search  on 
the  battlefield,  the  Duke's  body  was  found.  Though 
covered  with  wounds,  it  was  not  so  defaced  that  it  could 
not  be  recognised  by  his  laundress,  his  valet,  and  his 
doctor. 

The  Battle  of  Nancy  marks  the  climax  in  the  Seigneur 
de  Craon's  prosperity.  After  that  victory  there  began 
to  come  upon  him  the  physical  and  moral  defects  of  his 
family.  *'  The  said  Seigneur  de  Craon  was  an  exceedingly 
fat  man,"  writes  Commines.^  And  with  his  father's 
corpulence,  Craon  began  to  reveal  a  tendency  to  develop 
his  father's  vices.  In  the  Duchy  of  Burgundy,  where 
King  Louis,  after  Nancy,  had  established  him  in  command. 
La  Tremoille  permitted  and  possibly  even  perpetrated 
grandes  pilleries,  while  by  arrogance  and  quarrelsomeness 
he  alienated  one  of  Louis'     most  powerful  allies,   the 

1  Doubtless  Louis'  favourite  residence  in  Touraine,  better  known  as 
Plessis-les-Tours. 

2  See  "  Archives  d'un  Serviteur  de  Louis  XI.,"  pp.  iv.  and  v. 
8  "  M6moires."  ed.  Mich,  et  Poujoulat,  Ser.  I.,  Vol.  iv.,  145. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  49 

Prince  of  Orange.  The  Prince  retaliated  by  raising  a 
great  part  of  the  duchy  against  the  French.  Consequently 
after  he  had  suffered  a  severe  defeat  at  the  Battle  of  Dole, 
Craon  was  deprived  of  the  Burgundian  command. 

After  this  disgrace  La  Tremoille  retired  from  public 
life.  But  he  had  learnt  his  lesson.  On  his  estates  in 
Barrois  and  Mayenne,  where  he  spent  the  remnant  of  his 
days,  he  lived  as  a  law-abiding  vassal  of  the  King,  occupy- 
ing himself  in  good  works  and  pious  foundations.  At  his 
chateau  of  Craon  in  Mayenne  he  died  in  the  year  1481. 

His  domestic  experiences  were  not  unlike  his  father's, 
for  Craon's  consort,  Marie  de  Montauban,  like  his  father's 
first  wife,  Jeanne,  ended  her  life  in  prison.  Accused 
of  betraying  her  husband  and  even  of  plotting  with 
one  of  her  lovers  to  poison  him,  Marie  was  con- 
demned by  order  of  Louis  XL  to  perpetual  imprisonment. 
She  died  without  children  ;  and  her  husband  bequeathed 
all  his  vast  estates  to  his  elder  brother,  Louis. 

Louis  de  La  Tremoille,  having  served  in  the  army  of 
Charles  VI L  against  the  English,  on  the  accession  of 
Louis  XL  retired  to  his  estates,  where  he  lived  the  life  of  a 
pious  country  gentleman.  By  his  loyalty  and  orderliness. 
Count  Louis,  although  holding  aloof  from  public  affairs, 
was  a  tower  of  strength  to  his  sovereign  in  that  part  of 
France.  Had  La  Tremoille  with  his  great  wealth  and 
numerous  vassals  thrown  in  his  lot  with  the  discontented 
barons,  that  Mad  War  which  broke  out  some  years  after 
his  death  might  have  occurred  earlier,  and  been  less 
worthy  of  its  name.  Yet  La  Tremoille  had  better 
reasons  for  quarrelling  with  his  sovereign  than  many  of 
his  discontented  neighbours.  For  the  greater  part  of  the 
vast  inheritance,  the  estates  of  Talmond  and  of  Thouars, 
which  should  have  come  to  him  with  his  wife  Marguerite 

C.R.  E 


50  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

d'Amboise^  had  been  seized  by  the  King,  who  had  bestowed 
them  on  his  favourites.  How  by  the  persistence  of  Louis' 
famous  son,  Count  Louis  IL,  these  estates  were  regained 
and  united  to  the  family  dominions  is  another  story  which 
shall  be  told  in  the  following  chapter. 

1  The  daughter  cf  Louis,  Vicomte  d'Amboise. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION     51 


CHAPTER  IV 

LA  TREMOILLES  IN  THE  ITALIAN  WARS 

LOUIS    II.,    1460 — 1525.  CHARLES,    I485  — 1515. 

FRANCIS,  1502 — 1542. 

While  Craon  was  fighting  the  King's  battles,  in  his 
brother's  chateau  of  Bommiers,  in  Berry,  was  growing 
up  a  golden-haired,  hazel-eyed  boy,  Louis,  the  son  of 
Louis.  This  youth  was  to  be  the  typical  knight  of 
chivalry,  and  by  his  lustrous  deeds  to  atone  for  the 
family  ogre's  villainy.  In  the  midst  of  the  family  picture 
Louis  II.  de  La  Tremoille  stands  out  like  a  veritable 
demi-god.  His  well-knit  frame,  curly  locks,  aquiline 
nose,  and  decided  chin  are  those  of  the  verie  parfit  gentil 
knyghte.  "  The  greatest  captain  of  the  world,"  his 
contemporaries  called  him,  "  the  glory  of  his  century," 
"  the  jewel  of  the  French  monarchy,"  and,  like  Bayard, 
"  the  knight  without  reproach."  ^ 

Yet  despite  his  heroic  qualities  Louis  did  not  stand 
aloof  from  his  comrades,  proudly  looking  down  on  them 
from  a  pedestal  of  stern  virtue.  With  his  companions 
in  arms  he  was  hail-fellow-well-met.  And  though,  in 
writing,  they  may  have  lavished  upon  him  the  laudatory 
epithets  we  have  quoted,  in  speech  they  called  him  by 
a  nickname,  suggested  by  his  favourite  oath  Lavraye-corps- 

^  Bayard,  however,  was  "  the  knight  without  fear  and  without 
reproach." 

£  2 


52  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Dieu,  a   pseudonym,   somewhat    profane,    and    a    trifle 
lengthy,  but  doubtless  familiarly  contracted.^ 

The  story  of  Louis'  career  was  recorded  by  one  of  his 
own  retainers,  Jean  Bouchet,  a  Poitiers  lawyer,  in  a 
biography  entitled  "  Le  Panegyric  du  Chevalier  sans 
Reproche."^ 

The  extravagant  adulation  of  this  book  cannot  fail 

to  fill  with  misgiving  the  critical  modem  reader.     And 

in  order  to  gratify  his  judicial  sense  we  have  searched 

diligently  but  with  no  great  success  in  the  La  Tremoille 

archives   for   the   reverse   side   of   Bouchet's   flattering 

picture.     Our  hero's  gravest  failings,  as  revealed  by  these 

family  documents,  are  a  tendency  to  hold  too  loosely 

the  strings  of  his  well-filled  purse   and  a  passion  for 

games    of    chance.     With    King    Francis,    his    mother, 

Louise  of   Savoy,    and  his  much-tried  Consort,  Queen 

Claude,  La  Tremoille  lost  heavily  at  cards.     We  may 

conclude,  therefore,  that  when  Louis'  good  wife,  Gabrielle 

de  Bourbon,  is  found  pledging  her  jewels  and  silver  plate, 

and  converting  her  ornaments  into  golden  crowns  of  the 

sun,  it  may  not  always  have  been  to  pay  for  the  equipment 

of  her  husband  and  his  retainers  in  expeditions  of  war. 

But  when  all  is  said  these  are  no  very  serious  offences  ; 

card-playing  for  high  stakes  was  common  in  those  days, 

and  excessive  liberality  may  almost  be  regarded  as  a 

weakness  becoming  to  a  hero. 

Louis  opened  his  career  in  the  truly  heroic  manner 
by  running  away  from  home.  In  his  childhood  at 
Bommiers,  with  his  younger  brothers,  Jean,  Jacques 
and  Georges,  he  had  played  at  being  a  soldier.     Trained 

1  See  Brant6me,  "  (Euvres  Completes/'  ed.  Lalanne,  II.,  393 
et  seq.,  where  he  cites  the  favourite  oaths  of  great  captains.  The  most 
curious  is  that  of  La  Roche-du-Mayne,  Teste  Dieu  pleine  de  reliques. 

a  Ed.  Mich,  et  Pouj.,  Ser.  I.,  Vol.  IV.,  405—478. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  53 

to  run,  to  wrestle,  to  leap,  to  draw  the  bow  and  to  wield 
the  sling,  he  and  his  brethren  loved  to  fight  sham  battles 
and  engage  in  sham  sieges.  But  soon  of  this  world  of 
make-believe  Louis  wearied.  His  first  taste  of  real  life 
came  when  he  was  permitted  to  ride  forth  with  his 
father  to  hunt  in  the  forests  of  Berry,  and  then  sport  so 
absorbed  him  that  he  would  pass  whole  days  without 
food  or  drink. 

But  not  even  the  excitement  of  the  chase  satisfied  his 
craving  for  adventure.  Stories  of  the  King's  court  and 
of  the  band  of  noble  youths  whom  Louis  XL  was  gathering 
round  the  Dauphin  and  training  for  knightly  deeds, 
penetrated  even  to  remote  Bommiers,  and  young  La 
Tremoille  longed  to  enter  this  school  of  chivalry.  It  was 
therefore  a  bitter  disappointment  when  the  Count,  because 
of  his  quarrel  with  the  King,  refused  his  sovereign's 
demand  that  the  young  Louis  should  join  the  youthful 
band  at  court,  those  striplings  whom  the  King  was 
bringing  up,  not  entirely  for  their  own  good  but  also  as 
hostages  for  their  Sires'  loyalty. 

Shortly  afterwards,  during  a  long  night  in  the  forest, 
when,  having  lost  his  way  on  one  of  his  hunting  expedi- 
tions, Louis  had  ample  time  for  meditation,  he  resolved 
that  should  his  father  continue  to  refuse  to  send  him  to 
court,  he  would  take  the  matter  into  his  own  hands  and 
set  forth  on  his  own  account. 

The  Count  proving  obdurate,  the  young  Louis  took 
with  him  as  companion  another  noble  youth,  and  secretly 
started.  But  his  absence  was  soon  discovered  ;  he  was 
overtaken  and  ignominiously  brought  home. 

Barely  had  the  truant  returned  when  there  reached 
Bommiers  a  second  royal  messenger,  summoning  the 
boy  to  court  in  tones  so  peremptory  that  this  time  his 


54  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

father  dared  not  disobey.  So  our  hero,  instead  of 
being  punished  for  his  truancy,  heard  the  welcome  news 
that  his  dearest  wish  was  to  be  gratified.  A  fortnight 
later,  in  high  glee  as  we  may  imagine,  clothed  in  rich 
attire  and  accompanied  by  the  comrade  of  his  former 
evasion,  Louis  set  out  on  his  adventures. 

Having  been  graciously  welcomed  at  court  by  the  King 
and  by  his  uncle,  the  Seigneur  de  Craon,  the  young 
La  Tremoille  was  admitted  to  the  circle  of  noble  youths, 
whom  the  King  in  his  capacity  of  "  universal  guardian  " 
had  gathered  round  the  Dauphin  Charles. 

And  there  in  courtly  duties  and  martial  exercises 
Louis'  days  passed  pleasantly.  A  fear,  however,  began 
to  haunt  this  fair  stripling  ;  his  figure  began  to  fill  out 
too  rapidly,  and  there  came  upon  him  the  horrid  dread 
of  his  grandfather's  bloated  obesity  ;  wherefore,  with 
renewed  vigour,  he  engaged  in  all  manner  of  violent 
exercises,  subjecting  himself  to  the  severest  discipline 
of  diet,  with  the  result  that  his  persistent  efforts  were 
rewarded,  the  terrible  fate  of  a  resemblance  to  the  family 
ogre  was  averted  ;  and  Louis  remained  slim  and  agile 
to  the  end  of  his  days. 

"  A  young  shoot,  plucked  withal  from  an  old  Bur- 
gundian  stock,  yet  growing  to  be  a  hedge  of  defence  for 
the  realm  of  France,  and  a  rod  wherewith  to  beat 
Burgundy,"  thus  did  the  wily  King,  with  a  gleam  in  those 
foxy  eyes  of  his,  describe  Count  Louis'  son.  Thirteen 
years  old  was  Louis  when  he  came  to  court  ;  five  years 
he  passed  in  martial  and  courtly  training.  Then  at 
eighteen  he  was  at  length  permitted  to  engage  in  active 
service,  and  to  accompany  his  uncle  Craon  to  the  conquest 
of  Burgundy. 

So  fair  a  youth  was  not  destined  to  escape  the  darts 


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TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  55 

of  love,  and  Bouchet,  in  the  long-winded  fantastic 
manner  of  the  mediaeval  romance,  spins  out  to  an  inter- 
minable length  the  story  of  his  hero's  first  gallant  adven- 
ture. But  doubtless  our  readers  will  brook  abridgment 
and  rest  satisfied  to  know  that,  as  frequently  happened 
in  mediaeval  story,  the  lady  of  Louis'  desire  was  already 
the  wife  of  another,  and  of  the  lover's  most  intimate 
friend  ;  that  while  Louis'  Dulcinea  returned  his  love, 
and  while  the  lovers  confessed  their  passion  to  one 
another,  they  successfully  concealed  it  from  the  husband 
until  one  day  their  amorous  glances  betrayed  them  ; 
but  that,  still  true  to  the  heroic  tenor  of  the  popular 
tale,  the  husband,  magnanimously  relying  upon  the 
honour  of  his  wife  and  friend,  placed  no  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  their  meeting  ;  and  that  thus  trusted  the  lovers 
felt  bound  to  subject  their  passion  to  their  honour. 
Fortunately,  such  a  stern  trial  of  their  virtue  Louis  and 
his  lady  had  not  long  to  endure,  for  soon  the  knight  was 
summoned  from  court  to  Bommiers,  where  his  father 
lay  at  the  point  of  death.  There,  surrounded  by  his 
children.  Count  Louis  passed  away  in  the  year  1483. 

Our  hero  was  now  Count  of  La  Tremoille,  the  possessor 
of  a  great  fortune  and  the  lord  of  vast  domains.  And 
we  hear  nothing  more  of  his  romantic  affection.  Descend- 
ing rapidly  from  high-flown  romance  to  mere  material 
concerns,  the  Count's  chief  object  now  became  to  obtain 
from  the  King  the  restoration  of  those  confiscated  lands,^ 
that  part  of  the  Amboise  inheritance  which,  as  we  have 
said,  Louis  XL  had  bestowed  on  his  favourites.^ 

Accordingly,  soon  after  his  father's  funeral,  the  Count 

1  Besides  Thouars  and  Talmond,  these  estates  included  the  lordship 
of  Mauleon,  the  principalities  of  Berrie,  He  de  Rh6,  Marans,  and  other 
lands  in  Poitou  and  Saintonge. 

*  One  of  them  was  the  historian,  Philippe  de  Commines. 


56  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

set  forth  with  his  brothers  for  the  Touraine  chateau  of 
Plessis-les-Tours,  where  the  King  was  residing.  At 
Plessis,  by  the  intervention  of  the  Archbishop  of  Tours, 
La  Tremoille's  complaint  was  presented  to  Louis,  who 
promised  to  restore  the  confiscated  dominions.  But 
death  overtook  him  before  he  had  time  to  fulfil  his 
undertaking.  It  was  left  for  King  Louis'  virile  daughter, 
Anne  de  Beaujeu,  who,  during  the  minority  of  her 
brother,  the  thirteen-year-old  Charles  VIIL,  practically 
ruled  the  kingdom,  to  fulfil  her  father's  promise  to  La 
Tremoille.  On  September  30th,  1483,  the  rich  estates  of 
Amboise  passed  into  Count  Louis'  possession.  Hence- 
forth Louis  and  his  descendants,  as  well  as  Counts  of 
La  Tremoille,  were  Viscounts  of  Thouars  ^  and  Princes  of 
Talmond. 

The  town  of  Thouars,^  on  the  Thouet,  which  now 
belonged  to  the  La  Tremoilles,  had  once,  during  the 
English  occupation  of  western  France,  been  a  favourite 
residence  of  English  kings.  Henry  H.  built  there  a  palace 
with  two  towers,  la  Tour  au  Prev6t  and  laTourGrenetiere,^ 
of  which  the  ruins  may  be  seen  to-day.  The  fagade  of 
the  old  palace,  bearing  the  arms  of  the  kings  of  England, 
was  still  standing  at  the  Revolution.  But  the  Republican 
government  insisted  on  the  then  occupant,  Madame  de 
Bournisseaux,  removing  the  sign  of  royalty  from  its  walls. 
After  1483,  Thouars  may  be  regarded  as  the  La  Tremoille 
capital  in  the  west.  In  the  ancient  palace  of  English  kings 
the  La  Tremoilles  lived  until  the  seventeenth  century, 
when  a  duchess  of  La  Tremoille  built  on  the  banks  of  the 
Thouet  one  of  the  most  magnificent  chateaux  in  France. "* 

1  Thouars  was  to  be  created  into  a  duchy  by  Charles  IX.  in  1563. 

2  In  the  department  of  Sevres. 
8  See  illustration. 

^  See  ante,  VI.,  and  post,  133  and]2oo. 


LA   TOUR    AU   PREVOT 
Part  of  the  old  La  Tr^moille  chateau  at  Thouars,  built  by  King  Henry  II  of  England 


TO  THE  FRENCH    REVOLUTION  57 

Thouars  was  of  great  ecclesiastical  importance,  for 
within  its  walls  lay  buried  St.  Laon  de  Cursay,  to 
whose  shrine  for  many  a  year  had  flocked  multitudes 
of  the  mentally  afflicted.  Marvellous  miracles  had  been 
worked  there,  and,  besides  the  church  named  after  the 
saint  and  built  over  his  tomb,  numerous  other  sacred 
edifices  had  been  erected. 

Count  Louis  and  his  pious  wife,  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon, 
richly  endowed  all  these  ecclesiastical  foundations,  while 
not  far  from  their  palace  they  built  the  fine  church  of 
Notre  Dame.  In  a  chapel  of  this  church  dedicated  to 
St.  Medard  were  to  be  buried  the  La  Tremoilles  of  future 
generations.  The  fine  tombs  of  Count  Louis  and  his 
wife  in  the  choir  were  destroyed  at  the  Revolution  ;  but 
in  the  crypt  the  bodies  of  their  descendants  to  this  day 
rest  in  peace. ^ 

Anne  de  Beaujeu  had  inherited  her  father's  shrewdness. 
Therefore  she  was  quick  to  realise  the  importance  of 
securing  the  services  of  so  brilliant  a  knight  as  Louis  de 
La  Tremoille.  She  admitted  him  to  the  royal  council, 
and  proposed  his  marriage  with  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon,  a 
princess  of  the  blood  royal,  a  descendant  of  St.  Louis, 
and  a  daughter  of  the  Count  of  Montpensier.  Louis, 
completely  cured  of  his  earlier  romantic  attachment, 
gladly  welcomed  Anne  de  Beaujeu's  proposal,  and  when 
he  saw  Gabrielle's  portrait,  he  became  still  more  eager  for 
the  match.  To  this  ardent  lover's  disappointment, 
Madame  de  Beaujeu  refused  to  permit  him  to  conduct 
his  wooing  in  person.  A  gentleman  of  the  court  was 
charged  to  journey  into  Auvergne,  to  the  castle  of  Mont- 
pensier,   where   the  lady    dwelt,  and  to  bear  a  letter 

1  The  late  Duke,  Louis  Charles  de  La  Tremoille,  however,  was 
interred  at  Serrant. 


58  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

proposing  the  marriage.  But  Louis,  determined  to 
circumvent  Madame's  prudent  designs,  like  a  true  knight- 
errant  disguising  himself  as  one  of  the  messenger's 
retainers,  accompanied  him  to  Auvergne.  There  he 
penetrated  into  the  Montpensier  chateau  and  himself 
presented  the  letter.  Then  for  his  pains  the  masquerading 
suitor  was  fully  rewarded  by  hearing  Mdlle.  de  Mont- 
pensier say  as  she  read  the  missive,  that  though  she  had 
never  seen  the  Comte  de  La  Tremoille,  his  fame  was  so 
fair,  that  she  would  esteem  herself  happy  in  becoming  his 
wife. 

Gabrielle,  as  may  be  imagined,  was  only  flattered  when 
she  discovered  the  trick  her  gallant  had  played  her.  The 
course  of  their  love  ran  smooth,  and,  on  July  28th,  1484, 
at  the  castle  of  Escolles  in  Auvergne,  they  were  married. 

Bouchet  in  his  biography  of  La  Tremoille  draws  a 
striking  picture  of  Countess  Gabrielle,  representing  her  as 
a  fine  type  of  the  cultured  Frenchwoman  in  austere  pre- 
Renaissance  days,  before  the  Italian  wars  had  introduced 
into  French  chateaux  Italian  luxury  and  freedom. 

Unlike  her  husband,  Dame  Gabrielle  had  literary  tastes. 
She  was  even  the  author  of  treatises,  the  solemn  tenor  of 
which  is  betokened  by  such  titles  as  le  Chasteau  de  Sainct 
Esprit,  V Instruction  des  Jeunes  Filles,  and  le  Viateur. 
These  works  the  excellent  Bouchet  found  to  be  so  well 
written,  that  he  had  difficulty  in  believing  they  were  by  a 
woman — i.e.,  until  he  recollected  that  Madame  Gabrielle 
had  had  the  good  sense  to  appeal  to  his  sound  judgment 
and  that  of  other  members  of  the  superior  sex  for  advice 
as  to  their  composition.  For  Madame  Gabrielle  knew  her 
place  as  a  mediaeval  woman.  She  recognised  the  limits 
that  men  set  to  her  poor  feminine  intelligence  ;  and, 
though  a  devout  Christian,  she  forbore  to  inquire  too 


TO  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  59 

closely  into  the  mysteries  of  religion,  exercising  a  discre- 
tion which  the  good  Bouchet  highly  commends.  For  the 
Poitiers  lawyer  the  Countess  was  an  ideal  woman  ;  and 
in  terms  of  the  highest  praise,  he  recounts  how  she  used 
to  spend  her  day.  Having  paid  her  devotions,  she  passed 
most  of  her  time  in  embroidery  and  other  domestic 
avocations,  surrounded  by  her  numerous  ladies,  who  all 
belonged  to  noble  houses.  Then  for  a  space  she  would 
withdraw  into  the  privacy  of  her  book-lined  closet  to  read 
some  history  or  moral  discourse,  or  herself  compose  one 
of  her  pious  treatises. 

Dame  Gabrielle's  love  of  letters  was  inherited  by  her 
son  Charles,  Prince  de  Talmond,  born  the  year  after  his 
parents'  marriage,  and  in  early  years  the  author  of  elegant 
epistles  and  rondeaux.  If  in  mind  Prince  Charles 
resembled  his  mother,  in  physique  he  was  a  true  La 
Tremoille.  And  in  his  case  not  the  severest  discipline  or 
the  most  violent  exercise  succeeded  in  counteracting  the 
family  corpulence  :  had  death  not  cut  short  his  career 
he  would  probably  have  become  as  fat  as  his  great- 
grandfather. 

But  we  are  anticipating.  We  must  return  to  a  time 
before  so  dark  a  destiny  threatened  the  Prince,  when  he 
was  but  an  infant  in  the  cradle.  In  1485  a  number  of  dis- 
contented nobles,  led  by  the  King's  cousin,  Louis  Due 
d'Orleans,  who  aimed  at  replacing  Anne  de  Beaujeu  in  the 
Regency  of  the  realm,  rose  in  rebellion,  and  waged  another 
mad  war.  The  revolt  had  lasted  but  a  few  months, 
when,  being  utterly  worsted,  the  rebels  laid  down  their 
arms.  Shortly  afterwards,  however,  the  malcontents 
formed  a  new  league  in  which  they  included  Maximilian, 
Archduke  of  Austria.  War  broke  out  again  in  1487.  It 
was  waged  chiefly  in  Brittany,  where  Nantes  obstinately 


6o  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

held  out  against  the  forces  of  the  French  crown.  This 
check  before  Nantes  induced  Madame  de  Beaujeu,  on 
March  nth,  1487,  to  send  into  the  rebelHous  province 
another  army,  finely  equipped,  and  supported  by  an 
excellent  body  of  cavalry.  This  force  she  placed  under 
La  Tremoille's  command.  Count  Louis  was  totally 
lacking  in  experience  of  military  leadership.  Yet  by 
brilliant  success,  he  fully  justified  the  Regent's  choice. 
Having  taken  the  town  of  Fougeres,  Louis  attacked  the 
rebels  in  the  open  field,  and,  at  St.  Aubin-du-Cormier, 
charging  in  perfect  order  but  with  Frankish  fury 
{francisque  fureur),  his  troops  routed  the  malcontents, 
taking  Louis  d'Orleans  himself  prisoner. 

The  victory  of  St.  Aubin-du-Cormier  ended  the  civil 
war.  La  Tremoille  was  now  in  high  favour  at  court. 
Charles  VHL,  who  had  attained  his  majority  and  taken 
the  government  into  his  own  hands,  appointed  Louis  to 
be  one  of  his  chamberlains,  and  as  a  reward  for  his  conduct 
of  the  Breton  campaign  bestowed  upon  his  cher  et  feal 
cousin  the  captaincy  of  Fougeres,  with  a  pension  of 
2,000  livres  tournois.  Other  offices  and  emoluments  were 
to  follow. 

Two  years  later,  when  there  was  a  prospect  of  war  with 
England,  the  King  appointed  Louis  lieutenant-general 
in  the  provinces  of  Poitou,  Saintonge,  Angoumois,  Anjou, 
and  in  the  marches  of  Brittany.  But  the  war  came  to 
nothing,  for  Henry  VIL,  like  his  predecessor,  Edward  IV., 
was  bought  off  by  the  French  King,  and  withdrew  his 
army  without  doing  more  than  lay  siege  to  Boulogne.^ 

It  was  not  in  battle  against  England  that  La  Tremoille 
was  to  win  his  laurels.     By  this  time  Charles's  attention 
was  being  attracted  elsewhere.     The  King  had  persuaded 
^  This  agreement  is  known  as  the  Treaty  of  Estaples,  1492. 


[Giraudon.  Photo 


LOUIS   II,  COMTE   DE   LA   TREMOILLE 
From  a  portrait  by  Ghirlandajo,  at  Chantilly 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  6i 

himself  that,  through  his  grandmother,  Marie  d'Anjou,  he 
had  a  right  to  the  crown  of  Naples  ;  and  there  was  coming 
upon  him  that  passion  for  Italian  conquest  which  for 
half  a  century  was  to  obsess  French  sovereigns. 

Among  all  the  turbulent  princes  of  Italy  none  was 
more  ambitious  than  Ludovico  Sforza  of  Milan,  usually 
known  as  II  Moro,  and  one  of  the  most  striking  figures  of 
the  Renaissance.  In  this  year,  1492,  Ludovico  fanned 
Charles's  ambition  by  sending  to  his  court  an  embassy 
instructed  to  encourage  the  King  to  assert  his  claim  to 
the  Neapolitan  kingdom. 

What  were  the  precise  proposals  made  by  the 
ambassadors  is  uncertain,  but  it  is  perfectly  clear  that 
their  motive  was  to  divert  Charles  in  his  proposed  Italian 
expedition  from  any  enterprise  against  the  Duchy  of 
Milan.  Through  his  kinswoman,  Valentine  Visconti, 
daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Milan,  the  King  might  possibly 
have  laid  claim  to  that  duchy  ^ ;  but  on  Milan  Ludovico 
himself  had  designs.  He  had  already  usurped  the 
government  and  thrust  himself  into  the  position  of 
Regent  for  his  nephew,  the  Duke  Galeazzo,  whom  he 
had  cast  into  prison.  Now  Galeazzo's  father-in-law  was 
the  King  of  Naples,  and  Sforza's  design  was,  by  bringing 
King  Charles  against  the  Neapohtan  kingdom,  to  prevent 
Naples  from  intervening  on  his  son-in-law's  behalf  in 
Milan.  The  scheme  was  successful.  And,  when  in 
1494,  Charles  invaded  Italy,  it  was  against  Naples  alone 
that  his  arms  were  directed.  Milan's  turn  was  to  come 
later. 

In  the  previous  year,  if  we  may  believe  Jean  Bouchet, 
La  Tremoille  had  been  despatched  on  a  mission  to  Pope 

1  Eventually  Charles  VIII. 's  cousin,  and  successor,  Louis  XII.,  who 
was  directly  descended  from  Valentine,  did  claim  it. 


62  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Alexander  VI.,  whose  alliance  the  King  eagerly  coveted. 
No  other  authorities,^  however,  mention  Louis  as  one  of 
the  ambassadors  to  Rome.  The  Count  we  know  was 
appointed  lieutenant-general  in  the  King's  army.  And 
it  seems  likely  that  La  Tremoille  accompanied  Charles 
when,  in  August,  1494,  he  crossed  the  Alps  by  the 
Mont  Genevre. 

There  is,  likewise,  every  reason  to  believe  that  Count 
Louis  participated  in  that  crescendo  of  marvels,  that 
march  of  the  Northerners,  tramping  over  the  ancient 
Italian  roads  lying  white  in  the  autumn  dust,  from  Pa  via 
to  Florence,  from  Florence  to  Rome,  and  from  Rome  to 
Naples. 

That  La  Tremoille  was  with  the  King  at  the  famous 
capture  of  Fort  San  Giovanni,  which  laid  Naples  at  the 
feet  of  the  French,  there  is  no  doubt.  For  to  Count  Louis 
redounded  all  the  honours  of  that  glorious  day. 

With  the  true  instinct  of  a  successful  commander 
Louis  was  always  careful  for  the  physical  condition  of 
his  soldiers.  And  on  the  morning  of  the  attack  on  San 
Giovanni,  at  his  own  expense,  he  had  the  gunners  served 
with  wine.  The  cannonading  lasted  four  hours,  at  the 
end  of  which  time  the  Count,  at  the  head  of  three  com- 
panies, led  the  assault  and  was  the  first  to  set  foot  within 
the  walls  of  the  town.  No  sooner,  at  the  head  of  his 
first  company,  had  he  planted  his  standard  in  the  breach 
than  it  was  seen  to  float  from  another  which  had  been 
simultaneously  effected  by  the  second  company.  So 
great  was  the  "  Frankish  fury  "  that  in  the  space  of  an 
hour  the  town  lay  at  the  invader's  mercy.  Then,  crossing 
the  Liris  and  threatening  the  enemy  on  the  flank  and 

1  See  Delaborde,  "  rExpedition  de  Charles  VIII.,"  322,  according 
to  whom  the  ambassadors  were  d'Aubigny,  Perron  de  Baschi,  President 
Matheron,  and  Bidan,  superintendent  of  finances. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  63 

rear,  Charles  compelled  the  Neapolitan  army  to  retreat 
to  Capua,  while  he,  on  February  22nd,  entered  Naples. 

Of  the  spoils  of  the  Neapolitan  kingdom,  which  Charles 
distributed  among  the  nobles  of  his  army.  La  Tremoille 
appears  to  have  received  his  share.  But,  once  the 
plundering  over,  the  French  King  and  his  generals  were 
anxious  to  return  to  their  native  land.  Like  their 
country-woman  of  a  later  date,  who,  when  she  gazed  on 
the  blue  waters  of  the  Bay  of  Naples,  longed  for  the  mud 
of  her  natal  Rue  du  Bac,  Charles's  nobles  beneath  those 
sunny  skies  longed  to  be  back  among  the  clouds  and 
mists  of  their  northern  fatherland.  Moreover,  the 
King's  allies  were  turning  against  him.  Sforza,  having 
secured  for  himself  the  Duchy  of  Milan, ^  was  uniting  in 
a  league  against  the  French,  Venice,  the  Pope,  the 
Emperor,  Ferdinand  of  Arragon  and  Isabella  of  Castile. 

Threatened  with  isolation  in  a  hostile  country,  King 
Charles  began  to  prepare  for  a  return  to  his  base  of 
operations.  In  Naples  he  stayed  only  long  enough  to 
make  a  triumphal  entry  on  May  12th,  and  to  install  the 
Comte  de  Montpensier,  La  Tremoille's  brother-in-law, 
as  his  viceroy.  Then,  a  week  later,  Louis  with  the  King 
and  his  army  turned  his  steps  northward.  The  progress 
of  the  French  was  rapid  ;  entering  Rome,  whence  the 
Pope  had  fled,  on  June  ist,  on  the  13th  they  were  at 
Sienna,  on  the  23rd  at  Pisa.  At  Poggibonsi,  Charles 
gave  audience  to  Savonarola,  to  whom  he  confessed, 
and  from  whose  hands  he  received  the  Eucharist. 

North  of  Pisa,  at  Sarzana,  the  invaders  were  confronted 
by  a  perplexing  alternative  :  whether  to  take  the  coast 
road  winding  along  the  Gulf  of  Genoa  or,  marching  north 
by  way  of  Parma  and  Piacenza,  to  cross  the  Apennines 

*  Galeazzo  had  died  in  prison. 


64  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

into  the  Lombard  plain.  Both  roads  were  equally 
difficult  for  a  large  army  encumbered  with  a  train  of 
heavy  artillery  :  the  coast  road,  as  travellers  by  train  from 
Genoa  to  Florence  will  recollect,  is  bounded  on  the  one 
hand  by  the  sea,  and  on  the  other  by  high  mountains ; 
the  inland  road  ran  over  the  precipitous  peaks  and 
through  the  narrow  gorges  of  the  Apennines  ;  in  both 
directions  the  King  had  good  reason  to  beheve  a  hostile 
army  awaited  him.  Rather  than  fall  into  the  enemy's 
hands  between  the  sea  and  the  mountains,  Charles 
elected  to  cross  the  Apennines.  And  it  was  this  deci- 
sion which  gave  La  Tremoille  the  opportunity  of  per- 
forming the  most  glorious  of  all  his  exploits.  The  ascent 
was  made  from  Sarzana,  not  far  from  the  famous 
marble  quarries  of  Carrara,  in  that  wild,  picturesque 
country  with  which  Andrew  Wilson's  landscapes  have 
rendered  us  so  familiar.  But  as  they  neared  the  higher 
peaks  of  the  Apennines,  covered  with  dense  forests, 
the  French  commanders  were  met  by  an  almost  in- 
superable difficulty :  how  to  convey  over  these  precipi- 
tous mountains  their  train  of  fourteen  huge  cannon,  each 
of  which  was  usually  drawn  by  thirty-five  horses.  In 
this  dilemma  the  Swiss  came  to  their  rescue.  These 
mercenaries  by  plundering  a  captured  town  in  violation 
of  the  King's  command  had  fallen  into  disfavour.  Being 
anxious  to  reinstate  themselves  in  their  employer's  good 
graces,  they  proposed  to  harness  themselves  to  the  guns 
and  to  drag  them  over  the  mountain.  Their  offer  was 
eagerly  accepted. 

Now,  while  the  master-gunner,  Jean  de  la  Grange, 
arranged  the  technicalities  of  this  tremendous  under- 
taking, it  was  La  Tremoille  who  supervised  its  execution. 
And  to  him  is  chiefly  due  the  perfect  success  of  this 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  65 

Herculean  enterprise,  the  transport  of  fourteen  enormous 
cannon  over  a  pathless  mountain  in  the  scorching  July 
sun.     To  prepare  a  way  for  the  guns  to  pass,  trees  had 
to  be  cut  down,  rocks  exploded,  and  the  ground  levelled. 
In  all  these  works  Count  Louis  personally  took  part. 
Clad  only  in  doublet  and  hose,  he  worked  in  harness  side 
by  side  with  the  Swiss,  and  with  his  own  hand  bore  over 
the  mountain  helmets  full  of  heavy  cannon-balls.     All 
the  while  with  characteristic  French  patience  and  cheer- 
fulness he  was  encouraging  the  soldiers  by  offering  rewards 
to  those  who  should  first  drag  their  gun  to  the  summit, 
and  now,  as  at  San  Giovanni,  providing  wine  with  which 
to  quench  the  men's  parching  thirst.     Thus  encouraged 
by  their  heroic  captain,  and  inspirited  by  the  martial 
music  of  trumpet,  fife  and  drum,  inciting  one  another  to 
new  efforts  by  those  curious  cries  which  their  descendants 
even  to-day  call  over  the  Alpine  valleys,  the  Swiss  at 
length  succeeded  in  dragging  up  to  the  top  of  the  mountain 
all  the  fourteen  cannon.     Then  came  the  descent,  which 
was  even  more  difficult  than  the  ascent  had  been.      For 
the  guns  were  allowed  to  go  down  by  their  own  weight ; 
and  the  Swiss,   roped  to  the  backs  of  them  to  steady 
their  descent,  were  in  danger  of  being  carried  away  by 
the  impetus  of  the  artillery.      To  La  Tremoille's  care- 
fulness it  was  mainly  due  that  during  this  dangerous 
business  not  one  life  was  lost.     And  at  the  end  of  two 
days,   the   Count,  burnt  to   a   blackamoor  by  the  sun, 
triumphantly  told  the  King  that  his  artillery  train  had 
crossed  the  mountains  and  lay  safe  on  the  boulder-strewn 
bank  of  the  River  Taro. 

Charles  was  overjoyed  ;  and  to  his  indomitable  general 
the  words  with  which  the  King  welcomed  these  tidings 
must  have  been  highly  gratifying  :  "  To-day,  my  cousin," 

C.R.  F 


66  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

said  the  King,  "  at  the  risk  of  your  own  person,  which 
you  are  very  ready  to  hazard  in  the  service  of  me  and 
mine,  you  have  accomphshed  more  than  Hannibal  of 
Carthage,  or  JuHus  Caesar.  And  I  promise  you  that 
when  I  see  you  again  in  France  such  rewards  shall  be 
bestowed  upon  you  as  shall  inspire  others  with  a  wish 
to  serve  me/' 

La  Tremoille,  with  a  noble  knight's  true  modesty, 
replied  :  ''  Sire,  I  regret  that  my  mind  and  body  cannot 
better  serve  you  ;  no  other  reward  do  I  desire  than  your 
grace  and  goodwill."  ^ 

But  the  invaders  had  not  yet  overcome  all  their 
difficulties.  And  before  they  could  cross  the  Alps  they 
had  to  force  their  way  through  the  enemy's  army  at 
Fornovo,  where,  on  July  5th,  La  Tremoille  commanded 
the  rearguard,  which  appears  to  have  borne  the  brunt  of 
the  fighting.  Immediately  on  his  return  to  France, 
Charles,  remembering  his  promise,  appointed  his 
brilHant  general  High  Chamberlain.^ 

Two  years  and  a  half  later,  on  April  7th,  1498,  the 
King  died  childless,  leaving  as  his  heir  his  cousin  Louis, 
Duke  of  Orleans,  whom  La  Tremoille  had  taken  prisoner 
at  St.  Aubin-du-Cormier. 

The  accession  to  the  throne  of  King  Louis  XH.,  the 
Count's  sometime  prisoner  naturally  filled  La  Tremoille 
with  misgiving.  But  the  new  sovereign  prudently 
announced  that  the  King  of  France  did  not  intend  to 
avenge  the  wrongs  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  And  with 
magnanimity,  mingled  no  doubt  with  shrewdness, 
Louis  not  only  confirmed  La  Tremoille  in  the  possession 

1  Bouchet,  437. 

2  Premier  Chamhellan.  For  three  generations  La  Tr^moilles  held 
this  office:  Georges  under  Charles  VII.,  the  Seigneur  de  Craon  under 
Louis  XL,  and  now  Count  Louis. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  67 

of  those  lands,  offices  and  pensions  which  he  had  enjoyed 
under  King  Charles,  but  admitted  him  to  his  innermost 
councils. 

In  the  year  of  his  accession  two  problems  perplexed 
the  King,  and  in  the  solution  of  both  he  employed 
La  Tremoille. 

First,  he  was  thinking  of  divorcing  his  wife,  Jeanne 
de  France,  the  plain,  deformed  little  daughter  of  Louis  XL 
Jeanne's  story  is  a  sad  one.  She  had  been  the  victim  of  her 
father's  ambition  and  revenge.  Usually  royal  marriages 
are  planned  for  the  continuity  of  a  house ;  the  object  of 
this  one  was  the  reverse,  it  was  designed  to  extinguish 
the  house  of  Orleans.  At  the  time  of  Jeanne's  marriage 
to  Louis  of  Orleans  the  direct  succession  to  the  crown 
depended  on  the  thinnest  of  threads,  on  the  life  of  a  six- 
year-old  child,  Louis  XL's  only  son.  The  idea  that  an 
Orleans,  a  member  of  the  bitterly  hated  younger  branch 
of  his  family,  should  one  day  succeed  him  Louis  could 
not  tolerate.  So  to  the  head  of  the  Orleans  house,  to 
his  cousin  Duke  Louis,  he  gave  to  wife  a  princess  whom 
he  believed  would  have  no  children,  his  own  poor  little 
afflicted  daughter,  Jeanne. 

Heartily  as  he  detested  the  marriage,  Orleans  was  not 
then  in  a  position  to  resist.  Like  everyone  else  at 
Louis  XL's  court,  he  must  needs  bow  to  that  monarch's 
will.  Whether  the  union  was  ever  more  than  nominal 
was  later  to  be  debated  :  the  husband  declared  it  was  not, 
the  wife  asserted  the  contrary.  At  any  rate,  when,  after 
twenty-two  years  of  at  least  nominal  marriage,  Orleans 
ascended  the  throne  as  Louis  XI I. ,  he  determined  to 
untie  the  knot  which  bound  him  to  Jeanne. 

Too  close  a  blood  relationship  was  the  pretext  the  King 
pleaded  when  from  the  Pope,  Alexander  VL,  he  demanded 

F2 


68  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

a  bill  nullifying  his  marriage.  But  in  reality  two  other 
considerations,  both  of  them  perfectly  legitimate  according 
to  the  standards  of  that  age,  compelled  the  King  to  take 
a  step  which  was  much  more  usual  in  those  days  than  now  : 
first,  he  desired  an  heir  ;  second,  he  longed  by  marriage 
with  his  predecessor's  widow,  Anne,  the  wealthy  and 
powerful  Duchess  of  Brittany,  to  unite  to  the  French 
crown  that  last  of  the  great  independent  feudal  fiefs. 

The  King,  not  unnaturally,  hesitated  to  himself  broach 
to  Jeanne  the  subject  of  the  dissolution  of  their  union. 
But  La  Tremoille  and  the  Queen  had  been  friends  ever 
since  their  childhood,  when  Jeanne  was  living  at  the 
castle  of  Linieres,  not  far  from  Bommiers.  So  it  was 
La  Tremoille  whom  the  King  entrusted  with  the  dis- 
agreeable task  of  making  known  to  the  Queen  her  royal 
husband's  wishes.  And  Louis  knew  enough  of  his 
emissary  to  be  sure  that  he  would  perform  his  graceless 
mission  in  the  most  graceful  manner  possible.  The 
King  was  not  mistaken.  In  his  difficult  interview  with 
Jeanne,  La  Tremoille,  showed  himself  at  once  diplomatic 
and  delicate.  He  began  by  assuring  the  Queen  that 
the  King  loved  her  beyond  any  woman  in  the  world ; 
an  assurance  which  was  not  unnecessary  in  face  of  the 
persistent  neglect  with  which  Louis  had  treated  his  wife 
throughout  the  long  years  of  their  marriage.  Had  the 
Queen  been  able  to  continue  the  royal  line,  said  the 
ambassador,  then  her  consort  would  have  been  only  too 
happy  to  end  his  days  in  her  sainted  society. 

Apparently  Jeanne  received  her  lord's  proposal  with 
the  resignation  of  a  Griseldis.  But,  as  La  Tremoille  was 
leaving  her,  she  bade  him  entreat  the  King  to  take  counsel 
and  not  to  marry  from  motives  of  passion,  of  ambition,  or 
of  avarice. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  69 

But  Jeanne's  warning  was  too  late  a  day.  Already, 
as  we  have  seen,  Louis'  mind  was  made  up  ;  already  the 
machinery  for  the  dissolution  of  his  marriage  had  been 
set  working,  and  the  King  and  the  Pope  had  struck 
a  bargain  :  in  return  for  a  papal  bull  appointing  a 
commission  to  inquire  into  the  validity  of  the  royal 
union,  the  Pope's  son,  Caesare  Borgia,  was  to  receive  a 
rich  wife,  Charlotte  d'Albret,  with  the  fat  lands  of  the 
duchy  of  Valentinois.^ 

To  save  appearances  a  papal  inquiry  was  necessary. 
It  opened  at  Troyes,  on  August  loth,  1498,  in  the  house 
of  the  Dean  of  the  Chapter.  There,  after  much  hesitation 
and  anguish  of  heart,  Madame  Jeanne  de  France,  the 
daughter  and  wife  of  kings,  made  up  her  mind  to  appear 
in  order  to  contest  Louis'  assertion  that  their  marriage 
had  never  been  consummated. 

Nothing  but  a  strong  sense  of  religious  duty  could 
have  induced  the  timid  Jeanne,  who,  in  her  father's 
presence,  out  of  sheer  shyness,  used  to  shrink  behind 
her  governess,  to  come  forth  from  her  retirement  into 
the  ignominous  publicity  of  a  court  of  law.  But  to  her 
marriage  was  a  sacrament,  and  to  preserve  its  sanctity 
she  consented  even  to  reveal  the  tender  hidden  things  of 
her  inmost  heart. 

Yet  Jeanne's  evidence,  torn  from  her  at  the  cost  of  so 
much  suffering,  was  of  no  avail.  The  commission  sat 
for  four  months,  but  without  waiting  for  its  decision  the 
Pope  signed  the  dispensation  for  Louis'  marriage  with 
Anne  of  Brittany.  In  that  month  of  August  the  King, 
with  the  Duchess  and  La  Tremoille,  was  at  Etampes, 
signing,  with  Count  Louis  as  guarantor  and  witness,  a 

1  The  marriage  was  celebrated  at  Blois  in  1499  ;  and  it  was  the 
daughter  of  Ccesare  and  Charlotte  whom  La  Tremoille,  after  Gabrielle's 
death,  married  for  his  second  wife. 


70  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

solemn  promise  to  marry  Anne  within  a  year  or  to 
surrender  to  her  the  Breton  towns  of  Nantes  and 
Fougeres,  of  which  La  Tremoille  was  captain. 

Anne,  for  her  part,  by  virtue  of  a  clause  in  her  marriage 
contract  with  Charles  VIIL,  which  obliged  her  to  marry 
the  King  of  France,  his  successor,  promised  in  writing 
to  marry  Louis  as  soon  as  the  papal  inquiry  should  be 
completed.  Before  the  close  of  the  year  the  marriage 
took  place.  And  Jeanne  retired  to  her  appanage  at 
Berry,  where  six  years  later  she  died  in  such  odour  of 
sanctity  that  some  years  later  she  was  beatified. 

For  his  son's  marriage  with  Charlotte  d'Albret  the  Pope 
had  paid  a  further  price  in  promising  his  support  to  King 
Louis  in  the  expedition  he  was  then  preparing  against 
the  Duchy  of  Milan.  For  Louis  XIL  shared  his  pre- 
decessor's passion  for  Italian  conquest.  On  his  accession, 
Louis  had  assumed  the  titles  of  Duke  of  Milan  and  King 
of  Sicily.  But,  as  grandson  of  the  Milanese  princess, 
Valentine  Visconti,  it  was  Milan  rather  than  Naples  that 
first  attracted  his  ambition. 

Therefore,  in  1499,  the  year  after  his  accession,  having 
isolated  his  prey  by  a  formidable  network  of  alliances, 
including  the  Pope,  the  King  of  England,  the  King  and 
Queen  of  Spain,  Scotland,  Portugal,  Venice,  Hungary, 
Bohemia,  Switzerland  and  even  the  Empire,  Louis 
despatched  an  expedition  against  Milan  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Trivulzio,  a  Milanese  exile.  La  Tremoille  would 
appear  to  have  been  a  more  natural  commander.  But 
it  now  became  obvious  that  there  was  some  influence 
at  court  working  against  him.  It  cannot  have  been  the 
King's  influence,  for  Louis  XIL,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
completely  taken  his  sometime  captor  into  his  confidence. 
More  probably  it  was  the  Queen's  malevolence  that  caused 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  71 

Count  Louis  to  be  passed  over,  for  the  cold,  vindictive 
Anne  of  Brittany  had  never  forgiven  him  for  having  in 
earher  days  besieged  her  good  Breton  towns  and  overrun 
her  duchy.  Not  under  La  Tremoille,  therefore,  but  under 
Trivulzio,  the  French  army  crossed  the  Alps.  Yet, 
although  La  Tremoille  did  not  take  part  in  this  expedition, 
we  must  follow  it  briefly  in  order  to  understand  the 
Count's  subsequent  doings. 

Against  the  invading  force  of  the  French  King,  leagued 
with  all  the  great  Continental  powers,  the  Duke  of  Milan 
felt  he  had  no  possible  chance.  He  therefore  decided  to 
flee  from  his  duchy,  and,  while  raising  a  formidable  army 
of  mercenaries,  to  endeavour  to  break  up  the  league  of 
his  enemies.  The  first  member  he  succeeded  in  detaching 
was  the  Emperor  Maximilian.  Meanwhile,  in  September, 
1499,  Trivulzio  and  the  French,  having  overrun  the 
greater  part  of  the  Milanese,  were  able  to  enter  the  city 
and  buy  out  the  Duke's  garrison  from  the  citadel.  Towards 
the  end  of  the  month  King  Louis  himself  crossed  the  Alps 
to  take  possession  of  his  conquest,  and  on  October  6th 
made  his  solemn  entry  into  Milan.  Then,  after  spending 
a  month  in  regulating  the  affairs  of  the  duchy,  he  returned 
to  France,  leaving  Trivulzio  in  supreme  command. 

But  the  Italian's  arrogance  was  so  overbearing  and  his 
exactions  so  heavy,  that  the  Milanese  rose  in  revolt,  and 
on  February  3rd,  1500,  Trivulzio,  hearing  that  the  fugitive 
Duke  with  an  army  of  Swiss  mercenaries  was  approaching 
the  city,  deemed  it  wise  to  withdraw  with  his  army,  leaving, 
however,  a  French  garrison  in  the  citadel.  On  February 
5th,  Sforza  re-entered  Milan,  greeted  by  enthusiastic 
cries  of  "  Moro,  Moro."  But  all  his  efforts  to  capture  the 
citadel  were  unavailing  ;  so  he  must  needs  content  him- 
self with  taking  the  neighbouring  town  of  Vigevano, 


72  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

whence  he  advanced  to  Novara.  There,  on  March  21st, 
he  compelled  the  French  to  capitulate. 

By  this  time  Trivulzio  had  made  himself  cordially 
disliked  and  distrusted  by  his  companions  in  arms.  And 
Louis  was  driven  to  the  conclusion  that,  unless  his 
Italian  army  were  to  be  utterly  routed,  he  must  appoint  a 
new  and  trusted  general.  No  one  was  better  fitted  for 
such  a  responsible  post  than  La  Tremoille,  and,  disregard- 
ing all  remonstrances,  it  was  La  Tremoille  whom  the 
King  now  chose  to  lead  his  reinforcements  into  Italy, 
and  to  join  Trivulzio  in  command. 

On  March  26th,  1500,  with  500  men-at-arms  and  an 
excellent  train  of  artillery.  Count  Louis  joined  hands 
with  Trivulzio  at  Mortara,  where,  a  few  days  later,  he 
was  further  reinforced  by  14,000  Swiss,  bringing  the 
number  of  his  troops  up  to  30,000. 

In  the  almost  incredibly  brief  interval  of  nine  days, 
the  Count  converted  Trivulzio 's  discontented  and  mutinous 
army  into  the  finest  force  ever  commanded  by  a  French 
general  for  more  than  a  century.^  Preceded  by  a  banner, 
on  which  were  painted  a  whip,  a  torch  and  a  blood-stained 
sword,  at  the  head  of  his  lordly  host  La  Tremoille, 
on  April  5th,  set  forth  for  Novara. 

Before  this  town,  on  the  banks  of  the  Sesia,  the  Duke  of 
Milan  was  encamped  with  a  force  in  numbers  slightly 
superior  to  that  of  his  adversary,  but  in  morale  vastly 
inferior.  For  the  Duke's  army,  consisting  of  Swiss, 
Germans,  Burgundians  and  Italians,  all  clamouring  for 
arrears  of  pay,  was  disunited  and  discontented. 

On  the  day  after  their  departure  from  Mortara,  La 
Tremoille  and  his  men  took  up  their  position  over  against 
Sforza  before  Novara.     For  the  two  following  days  there 

1  Auton,  "  Chroniques,"  ed.  Maulde  la  Claviere,  241  et  seq. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  73 

was  indecisive  skirmishing.  Meanwhile  the  troops  on 
both  sides,  many  of  whom  were  compatriots,  were 
fraternising.  From  their  countrymen  in  the  Count's 
service,  the  Duke's  Burgundians,  Swiss  and  ItaHans  were 
learning  that  against  so  excellently  organised  a  force 
Sforza's  disintegrated  host  had  not  the  remotest  chance 
of  victory.  Wherefore,  during  the  night  of  April  7th, 
vast  bodies  of  the  Duke's  soldiers  slipped  off,  some  to 
take  refuge  within  the  walls  of  the  town,  others  to  cross 
the  Sesia  and  return  to  their  native  land.  Consequently, 
when  the  Duke  of  Milan  awoke  in  the  morning  it  was  to 
find  that  a  great  part  of  his  army  had  melted  away. 

On  that  day,  which  was  April  8th,  the  French  closely 
invested  Novara.  And  then  Sforza's  Swiss,  seeing  their 
cause  to  be  hopeless,  opened  negotiations  with  La 
Tremoille,  demanding  a  safe  conduct  to  their  native  land. 
But  before  the  French  general  would  accede  to  their 
request  he  demanded  the  Duke's  surrender.  Even  to 
these  mercenaries  so  open  an  act  of  treachery  was  odious. 
At  first  they  hesitated  ;  and  it  was  only  after  a  whole 
day's  bargaining  that,  on  the  9th,  they  agreed  not  to 
resist  their  leader's  capture,  if,  during  their  retreat,  he 
should  be  discovered  in  their  ranks. 

The  events  which  followed  are  somewhat  obscure. 
But  it  appears  that  La  Tremoille,  determined  not  to  permit 
so  valuable  a  prize  to  escape  him,  ordered  the  Swiss,  as 
they  withdrew,  to  defile  singly  beneath  a  pike  held  over 
their  heads  by  the  French  soldiers.  Seeing  that  some 
thousands  of  Swiss  soldiers  still  remained  in  Novara, 
it  may  be  imagined  that  the  process  was  a  somewhat 
lengthy  one.  After  it  had  lasted  three  hours,  there  passed 
beneath  the  pike  one  with  a  careworn  look  and  furtive 
glance,    whose    marked    features,    colossal    height    and 


74  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

distinguished  bearing  were  unmistakable — the  Duke  of 
Milan  was  recognised  and  arrested.^ 

Thus,  for  a  second  time  within  but  a  few  years,  had  it 
fallen  to  La  Tremoille's  lot  to  capture  the  leader  of  a 
hostile  army.  And  in  the  King's  judgment  Novara  must 
surely  have  atoned  for  St.  Aubin-du-Cormier. 

It  was  Count  Louis  himself  who  wrote  a  long  letter  to 
the  King  announcing  the  Duke  of  Milan's  capture. 
Louis  received  the  news  at  Lyons  early  one  morning, 
before  he  was  up.  And  at  once  he  hastened  to  announce 
it  to  the  Queen.  "  Madame,"  he  cried,  on  entering 
Anne's  chamber,  "  will  you  believe  it,  La  Tremoille  has 
taken  Louis  Sforza  !  "  But  Anne  refused  to  believe  it, 
until  Louis  repeatedly  assured  her  that  it  was  certain, 
and  that  a  sovereign  of  France  never  had  a  better  or 
more  loyal  servant,  or  one  more  successful  in  his  under- 
takings. 

Well  might  the  King  of  France  rejoice,  for  among  all 
his  enemies  Ludovico  Sforza,  Duke  of  Milan,  was  the 
most  formidable. 

The  husband  of  Beatrice  d'Este,  the  Duke  of  Ferrara's 
brilliant  and  graceful  daughter,  who  happily  did  not  live 
to  see  her  husband's  ruin,  Sforza  was  the  patron  of  litera- 
ture and  of  art.  To  the  brutal  virility  of  a  condottieri  he 
united  the  taste  and  the  learning  of  a  polished  gentleman 
and  a  refined  scholar. 

There  are  those  who  consider  that  because  Sforza 
brought  the  French  into  Italy  he  was  a  traitor  to  his 
native  land.  But  such  detractors  forget  that  in  those 
days  Italy  was  but  a  geographical  expression,  that  her 
numerous  independent  states  were  separate  entities,  and 

1  Bouchet  says  he  was  wearing  the  habit  of  a  Franciscan  friar  :  that 
he  should  have  donned  such  a  disguise  is  improbable,  for  it  would  only- 
have  rendered  his  striking  personality  more  recognisable. 


UlflQVIClBMORE 
£COLE    MILANAISE 


[Giraudon,  Photo 
From  a  portrait  of  the  Milanese  School  now  in  the  Louvre 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  75 

that  when  Sforza  invited  Charles  VIII.  to  cross  the  Alps 
and  attack  Naples,  he  was  merely  opposing  a  hostile 
power.  That  the  Duke  of  Milan  was  a  usurper 
who  had  ousted  his  nephew,  Galeazzo,  from  power 
no  one  can  deny.  And  for  this  treachery  La  Tremoille's 
captive  paid  the  penalty  to  the  uttermost  in  long 
years  of  imprisonment  and  a  miserable  death  in  a 
foreign  dungeon. 

Transported  with  joy  at  his  enemy's  capture,  Louis 
wrote  no  less  than  three  letters  to  La  Tremoille,  urging 
him  to  lose  no  time  in  sending  his  prisoner  to  France, 
and  to  neglect  no  precaution  to  prevent  his  escaping  on 
the  road.  "  For  I  have  a  marvellous  desire  to  see  him 
over  here  .  .  .  and  I  shall  never  be  at  ease  until  I 
behold  Ludovico  on  this  side  the  mountains,"  ^  wrote 
Louis  from  Lyons. 

As  soon  as  the  King's  commands  were  received,  Sforza, 
who  for  the  time  being  had  been  confined  in  the  citadel 
of  Novara,  was  placed  in  an  iron  cage  covered  with 
wood  and  taken  first  to  Lyons  that  the  King  might 
behold  his  fallen  foe,  and  thence  to  the  castle  of 
Lys-Saint-Georges  in  Berry,  where  he  died  eight  years 
afterwards.^ 

Having  conquered  Milan,  King  Louis  next  proceeded 
against  Naples.  And  in  the  plans  made  for  the  conquest 
of  the  Neapolitan  kingdom.  La  Tremoille  was  treated 
just  as  he  had  been  when  the  conquest  of  Milan  had  been 
undertaken.  Now  again  he  found  himself  passed  over 
and  replaced  by  Italians.  This  time  the  Queen's 
influence  is  perfectly  obvious.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
it  was  at  her  suggestion   that  the  King  detained  Count 

1  "  Chartier  de  Thouars,"  32  and  33. 

2  There  appears  to  be  no  authority  for  the  tradition  that  he  died  in 
the  chateau  of  Loches  in  Touraine. 


76  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Louis  at  home  to  guard  the  coast  of  Anne's  duchy  ^ 
against  a  possible  EngHsh  invasion. 

"  At  the  instance  of  our  very  dear  and  greatly  beloved 
companion  "  (notre  tres  chtre  et  ires  aim^e  compaigne) ,  so 
runs  the  official  document  of  La  Tremoille's  nomination,^ 
the  King  committed  to  his  loyal  servant's  charge  watch 
and  ward  over  the  Breton  coasts  in  addition  to  the 
defence  of  those  of  Guyenne  which  he  already  exercised. 

But  now  again,  as  during  the  Milanese  conquest,  the 
ItaHan  commanders  having  proved  incompetent,  the 
King  was  glad  to  supersede  them  by  Frenchmen,  one  of 
whom  was  La  Tremoille. 

It  was  in  August,  1503,  that  for  the  third  time  Count 
Louis  crossed  the  Alps  into  Italy.  On  the  i8th  of  the 
month,  the  Pope,  Alexander  Borgia,  died.  And  King 
Louis,  hoping  to  secure  the  election  to  the  papal  chair 
of  his  minister,  La  Tremoille's  uncle,  Georges  d'Amboise, 
and  thinking  that  the  presence  of  a  French  army  near 
Rome  might  further  this  design,  ordered  the  Count  to 
linger  round  the  Holy  City  instead  of  marching  on  Naples. 

La  Tremoille  had  not  been  well  when  he  left  France, 
and  the  effect  of  the  Italian  heat  of  those  summer  months, 
aggravated,  perhaps,  by  some  disappointment  at  being 
withheld  from  active  service,  was  not  to  improve  his 
health.  He  grew  rapidly  worse  until  his  doctor,  des- 
pairing of  his  life,  demanded  his  recall.  Louis  replaced 
the  Count  by  his  old  enemy  at  Fornavo,  Gonzaga,  Marquis 
of  Mantua,  who,  like  many  another  Italian  general  in 
those  wars,  had  gone  over  to  the  French.  Gonzaga  took 
the  command,  and  La  Tremoille  regretfully  returned  to 
France. 

1  The  Queen's  duchy  of  Brittany  was  not  formally  united  to  the 
crown  until  after  her  death. 

^  "  Les  La  Tremoille  pendant  cinq  si^cles,"  II.   128   129 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  77 

Their  general's  illness  was  only  the  beginning  of  the 
French  misfortunes.  Gonzaga  soon  became  unpopular 
with  the  troops  and  resigned,  leaving  the  army  leaderless, 
disunited  and  undiscipHned,  to  be  completely  routed  by 
the  Spanish  general,  Gonzala.^ 

Meanwhile,  La  Tremoille  was  in  for  a  year's  serious 
illness.  The  King  grieved  sorely  over  his  indisposition, 
for  the  Count  was  one  of  the  few  at  court  who  were  ever 
ready  to  serve  their  sovereign  without  clamouring  for  a 
reward.  Despite  his  disinterestedness,  however,  he  was 
not  to  go  entirely  unrecompensed.  On  his  recovery, 
the  King  appointed  him  governor  of  the  rich  province 
of  Burgundy.  This  was  a  "  fine  estate  and  one  eagerly 
desired  by  all  good  people."  Yet  the  office  was  far  from 
being  a  sinecure  ;  for  as  a  frontier  province  Burgundy 
was  constantly  open  to  attack.  The  Mayor  of  Dijon 
welcoming  the  new  Governor  into  his  capital  did 
not  conceal  how  much  was  expected  from  him.  The 
Burgundians  looked  to  La  Tremoille,  he  said,  and  to  the 
renown  of  his  victories  to  serve  them  as  a  rampart 
against  the  sudden  movements  of  the  industrious 
Flemings,  the  pertinacious  Hainaulters,  the  pillaging 
Swiss,  the  greedy  Germans,  and  all  those  who  were 
envious  of  the  frugality  and  the  wealth  of  these  bounti- 
fully gifted  people.  Burgundy  was,  indeed,  the  wealthiest 
of  French  provinces,  and  on  that  account  there  were  few 
French  nobles  who  could  have  been  trusted  to  govern 
it.  But  La  Tremoille,  being  totally  devoid  of  avarice, 
appears  to  have  kept  his  hands  immaculate,  "  uncor- 
rupted,"  says  Bouchet,  "  by  gifts  of  gold  or  silver." 

Despite  the  cares  of  his  new  office,  Louis  still  required 
the  Count's  services  in  Italy.     And  in  1507  we  find  him 

1  On  the  Garigliano,  December,  1503. 


78  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

accompanying  the  King  to  suppress  a  revolt  of  Genoa 
against  French  rule.  This  done  the  King  proceeded  to 
Milan,  and  thither  went  with  him  three  La  Tremoilles, 
Count  Louis,  his  son,  Charles,  Prince  of  Talmond,  and 
his  brother,  Jean. 

Jean  was  the  first  of  the  La  Trdmoille  cardinals. 
Having  entered  the  Church  in  early  years  he  rose  rapidly, 
chiefly  through  his  brother's  influence,  to  be  Bishop  of 
Poitiers  and  Archbishop  of  Auch.  He  was  a  typical 
prince  of  the  Church,  and  as  great  a  pluralist  as  our  own 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  for  in  addition  to  his  bishopric  and 
archbishopric  he  enjoyed  the  revenues  of  half  the 
bishopric  of  Agen,  of  eight  abbeys  and  of  one  priory. 
With  an  income  of  50,000  livres  he  lived  in  great 
state  with  fifty  horses  in  the  stable,  a  magnificent  train 
of  falcons,  and  a  master  falconer,  who  was  one  of  the 
most  famous  in  his  day  and  generation. 

Jean  had  been  made  a  Cardinal  by  Julius  IL  in  1506. 
And  in  this  year,  1507,  he  was  on  his  way  to  Rome  to  do 
homage  to  the  Pope.  But  at  Milan  he  was  stricken  with 
fever  and  died.  His  body,  having  temporarily  rested  in 
a  Franciscan  church  of  the  city  where  the  Cardinal  had 
been  accustomed  to  hear  mass,  was  eventually  taken  to 
France  and  buried  at  Thouars,  in  the  church  of  Notre 
Dame. 

Twice  again  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XK.  was  Count 
Louis  to  visit  Italy,  in  1509  and  in  15 13.  In  the  former 
year  the  Count  and  his  son,  the  Prince  de  Talmond, 
distinguished  themselves  at  Agnadello,  where  the  King 
defeated  the  Venetians.  In  15 13,  once  again  in  joint 
command  with  Trivulzio,  La  Tremoille  led  an  unfortunate 
expedition  against  the  members  of  the  newly-formed 
Holy    League.     By    a    curious    coincidence    the    chief 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  79 

engagement  was  fought  on  the  scene  of  the  Count's 
famous  capture  of  Ludovico  Sforza,  outside  the  walls  of 
Novara.  But  now  the  fortunes  of  war  were  reversed, 
and  La  Tremoille  suffered  defeat  at  the  hands  of  the 
Swiss,  whom  formerly  he  had  conquered.  Having  lost 
all  their  artillery  and  stores,  Louis  and  his  fellow  com- 
mander were  compelled  to  retreat  hastily  into  France 
by  the  passes  of  Susa  and  Mont  Cenis.-^ 

In  the  previous  year  the  French  had  lost  Milan,  and 
the  last  of  King  Louis'  Italian  campaigns  had  been  fought. 
Not  that  he  had  relinquished  his  designs  on  Milan  or 
on  Naples,  for  he  devoted  the  remainder  of  his  reign 
to  preparing  a  formidable  expedition,  the  undertak- 
ing of  which  death  compelled  him  to  leave  to  his 
successor. 

After  his  defeat  at  Novara,  La  Tremoille  hastened  to 
his  province  of  Burgundy,  which  had  already  been 
invaded  by  the  victorious  Swiss.  Strengthened  by 
imperial  support,  they  were  investing  Dijon  with  an 
army  of  60,000.  Count  Louis  sent  an  urgent  request 
to  the  King  for  reinforcements.  But,  as  the  English 
were  at  that  time  invading  France  on  the  north,  no  army 
was  forthcoming,  and  La  Tremoille  was  forced  to  buy 
off  the  invaders  with  a  promise  of  400,000  crowns.^ 

The  news  of  this  humiliating  treaty  was  a  great  blow 
to  the  King,  who  was  at  first  inclined  to  severely  censure 
its  author  ;  but,  when  it  was  represented  to  him  what 
enormous  odds  were  against  his  general,  his  common 
sense  vanquished  his  chagrin  and  La  Tremoille  was 
forgiven. 

^  Bouchet  exonerates  his  hero  from  any  blame  in  this  reverse,  saying 
that  the  defeat  resulted  from  Trivulzio's  refusal  to  follow  his  colleague's 
advice. 

2  See  Brantome  "  Les  Grands  Capitaines  Fran9ais,"  ed.  Lalanne, 
II.,  393  ^i  seq. 


8o  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

In  the  following  year  his  old  enemy,  Queen  Anne, 
having  died,  the  Count,  with  a  train  of  other  distin- 
guished knights  rode  out  of  Abbeville  to  meet  his 
sovereign's  bride,  Mary  Tudor,  and  to  escort  her  to  her 
husband.  The  King  survived  his  third  marriage  but  a 
few  months.  In  January,  1515,  he  died,  leaving  his 
throne  and  his  Italian  quarrels  to  his  kinsman,  Francis 
of  Angouleme,  Duke  of  Valois. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  King  Francis  was  to  confirm 
La  Tremoille  in  the  possession  of  all  his  estates  and 
offices.  At  the  court  of  the  new  King,  says  Michelet, 
the  veteran  commanders.  La  Tremoille  and  Trivulzio, 
were  like  two  pieces  of  old  furniture  which  had  served 
their  turn.^  Yet  Francis  did  not  despise  his  "  old 
furniture."  And,  when  a  few  months  after  his  succession, 
in  August,  1515,  in  pursuance  of  his  predecessor's  design, 
he  led  over  the  Alps  an  army  more  powerful  than  any 
yet  raised  in  the  wars.  La  Tremoille  went  with  him. 
With  the  old  Count  were  his  son,  Charles  Prince  de 
Talmond,  and  his  grandson,  Francis,  who  was  but  a 
boy  of  thirteen. 

King  Francis  was  obviously  bent  on  honouring  the 
La  Tremoilles,  for  it  was  to  the  wardship  of  his  namesake, 
this  boy  of  thirteen,  that  the  King  committed  the  first 
distinguished  prisoner  taken  in  the  campaign,  Prospero 
Colonna,  whom  Francis  de  La  Tremoille  conducted  right 
across  France  to  his  Poitevin  prison  in  the  castle  of 
Montegu.^ 

The  boy's  father  and  grandfather  meanwhile  were 
with  the  French  army  at  Novara  avenging  Count  Louis' 
defeat  of  two  years  earlier,  and  winning  back  the  lost 

1  Michelet,  "  Hist,  de  France  an  SeiziSme  Si^cle,"  Bk.  I.,  Chap.  XIII, 

2  Brantome  "  CEuvres  Completes  "  (ed.  Lalanne),  V.  146. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  8i 

artillery.  Then  the  French  encamped  by  the  Roman 
road,  ten  miles  from  Milan  city,  close  to  the  village  of 
Marignano. 

There,  on  the  afternoon  of  September  13th,  as  King 
Francis  was  in  his  tent  trying  on  a  new  suit  of  German 
armour,  he  heard  that  the  enemy's  Swiss  mercenaries 
had  come  out  of  Milan,  and  that  in  battle  array  some 
30,000  strong  they  were  rapidly  advancing  to  the 
attack. 

Of  the  two  days'  battle  which  followed  accounts  vary. 
During  the  hours  of  darkness  which  suspended  the  fighting, 
while  their  adversaries  were  refreshed  by  food  and  drink 
from  Milan,  the  hungry  French  lay  all  night  under  arms. 
Having  called  for  a  glass  of  water,  the  young  King  found 
it  mingled  with  gore.  Thirsty,  he  retired  to  his  rest 
beneath  a  gun-carriage,  having  first  extinguished  his 
fire  so  that  unseen  he  might  observe  what  his  men  were 
doing.  Close  beside  him  lay  La  Tremoille.  The  Prince 
de  Talmond  was  in  another  part  of  the  camp  with  his 
cousin.  Constable  Bourbon. 

With  early  dawn  the  struggle  was  renewed.  It  was, 
as  Trivulzio  called  it,  "a  battle  of  giants,"  and  long  did 
the  issue  tremble  in  the  balance.  The  tide  turned  in 
favour  of  the  French  when  Alviano,  the  general  of  the 
Venetian  Republic,  the  only  Italian  ally  of  France,  came 
up  with  a  body  of  horse.  Alviano's  arrival,  like  that  of 
Bliicher  at  Waterloo,  took  the  heart  out  of  the  enemy. 
Soon  afterwards  they  retreated,  leaving,  so  it  is  said, 
no  less  than  half  their  number,  15,000,  on  the  field. 

The  French,  too,  had  lost  heavily.  And  Count 
Louis'  son,  Charles,  Prince  de  Talmond,  lay  dying, 
wounded  in  sixty-two  parts  of  the  body.^ 

1  We  quote  Bouchet. 
C.R.  G 


82  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

It  was  the  young  King  who  took  upon  himself  the 
terrible  task  of  breaking  to  the  Count  that  he  must  not 
hope  for  his  son's  recovery.  Charles  died  thirty-six  hours 
after  the  battle. 

Though  grieving  deeply  over  the  death  of  his  only  son, 
La  Tr^moille,  with  characteristic  devotion  to  duty, 
remained  with  the  army.  To  the  care  of  his  grand- 
son's tutor,  Regnaud  de  Moussy,  he  committed  his 
son's  body.  Slowly  and  pompously  it  was  conveyed 
through  France  to  Thenars  to  its  last  resting-place 
in  the  church  of  Notre  Dame  by  the  side  of  Cardinal 
Jean. 

A  messenger  from  her  husband  had  borne  to  Gabrielle 
de  Bourbon  the  sad  tidings  of  her  son's  death.  Despite 
the  spiritual  consolations  of  her  nephew,  the  Bishop  of 
Poitiers,  who  was  with  her  at  the  time,  Gabrielle  was 
unable  to  practise  those  counsels  of  resignation  she  sent 
to  her  husband,  and,  sinking  beneath  the  blow,  she  died 
of  grief  in  the  following  year. 

Thus  there  passed  away  one  of  the  finest  types  of  old 
French  feminity.  Bouchet,  whose  literary  tastes  made 
him  her  favourite  companion,  describes  her  as  a  woman 
of  few  words,  temperate,^  grave,  magnanimous,  and  above 
all  things,  pious.  Dignified  and  distant  in  public,  among 
the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  her  household,  and  those  she 
knew  well,  she  was  always  gracious  and  familiar,  ready 
with  kind  words  and  wise  counsel,  but  disliking  scandalous 
and  licentious  talk. 

The  death  of  the  Prince  de  Talmond  left  as  heir  to  the 
La  Tremoille  estates  the  young  Francis,  whose  mother, 
Louise   de    Coetivy,    was  first   cousin   to  the    King  of 

*  "  EUe  se  contentoit  de  peu  de  viandes  aux  heures  accoutu- 
m6es." 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  83 

France.^  The  uncertain  life  of  a  boy  of  thirteen  was  but  a 
slender  thread  on  which  to  hang  the  hope  of  the  perpetua- 
tion of  the  La  Tremoille  line.  And  it  may  have  been 
primarily  for  the  purpose  of  furnishing  his  family  with 
another  heir  that  Count  Louis,  despite  his  deep  grief  at 
Gabrielle's  death,  only  a  year  afterwards  took  to  himself 
another  wife,  Louise  d'Albret,  Duchess  of  Valentinois  and 
only  child  of  Csesare  Borgia  and  Charlotte  d'Albret.^  While 
the  lately  disconsolate  widower  was  fifty-seven,  his  bride 
was  but  a  girl  of  seventeen.  The  Count's  friends  expressed 
their  amazement  at  his  choosing  a  successor  to  the  highly 
virtuous  Gabrielle  de  Bourbon  from  the  decadent  Borgia 
house.  Louis  is  said  to  have  made  the  astounding  reply, 
that  it  was  precisely  because  Louise  came  of  a  stock 
the  virtue  of  whose  women  had  never  been  questioned, 
that  he  had  chosen  her.  If  tradition  speak  true,  there  was 
certainly  no  question  about  the  virtue  of  the  Borgia 
women  :  for  one  cannot  question  what  does  not  exist. 
But  perhaps  that  was  hardly  the  Count's  meaning. 
Louis  may  have  been  closing  his  eyes  to  the  Borgia  family 
history,  and  thinking  only  of  the  maternal  side  of  his 
wife's  house,  of  the  d'Albret  women,  who  had  on  the 
whole,  been  beyond  reproach. 

Both  Louise's  parents  were  dead  at  the  time  of  her 
wedding.     And  apparently  it  was  by  the  King's  mother, 


1  John  of  Angoulfime. 


1  I 

Charles  m.  Louise  of  Savoy.  Joan  m.  Charles  de  Coetivy, 

Comte  de  Taillebourg. 

Francis  I.  Louise  de  Coetivy  m.  Charles 

de  la  Tremoille. 


*  See  ante,  69  and  note. 


Francis  de  la  Tremoille. 
G  2 


84  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Louise  de  Savoie,  of  whom  Mdlle.  d'Albret  was  a  lady-in- 
waiting,  that  the  marriage  was  arranged.  After  Gabrielle's 
death,  Count  Louis  had  been  much  at  court,  losing  large 
sums  of  money  at  games  of  chance,  and  it  may  have  been 
while  playing  at  trictrac  or  oie  that  Madame  de  Savoie 
suggested  to  the  Count  that  he  might  fill  his  rapidly 
emptying  purse,  and  at  the  same  time  secure  the  con- 
tinuation of  his  house,  by  espousing  the  wealthy  young 
Duchess  of  Valentinois. 

Marriages  were  just  then  running  in  Louis'  mind. 
And  in  order  to  make  doubly  secure  the  La  Tremoille 
succession,  in  this  same  year,  15 17,  he  betrothed  his 
niece,  Jacqueline,  daughter  of  his  brother,  Georges, 
Seigneur  de  Jonvelle,  to  the  friend  of  the  King's  boyhood, 
Anne  de  Montmorency,  who  later  as  Constable  of  France 
was  to  be  one  of  the  century's  most  prominent  figures. 
In  the  event  of  the  Count  and  his  brother  dying  without 
male  heirs,  Montmorency  was  to  inherit  the  La  Tremoille 
title  and  possessions.  But  Jacqueline  was  not  yet  of  a 
marriageable  age,  and  when  she  became  old  enough, 
Montmorency  had  changed  his  mind,  so  this  wedding 
never  took  place. 

For  the  first  few  years  after  his  second  marriage  Louis' 
sword  rested  in  the  scabbard.  With  three  young  Kings 
on  the  three  greatest  thrones  of  Europe,  Henry  VIIL  in 
England,  Charles  in  Spain,  Francis  in  France,  Christen- 
dom was  en  fete,  and  jest  and  laughter,  hunting  and 
dancing  were  the  order  of  the  day.  The  French  court 
was  the  gayest  of  all ;  and  the  Spanish  ambassadors, 
following  the  King  from  chateau  to  chateau,  complained 
that  they  could  never  obtain  an  audience  from  the 
pleasure-loving  monarch  :  in  the  evening  he  was  too  busy 
with  banquet,  concert  and  dance  ;   in  the  early  morning 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  85 

too  sleepy,  and  no  sooner  up  and  awake  than  off  to  the 
greenwood  with  the  hunt. 

Every  poHtical  event  was  eagerly  used  as  an  excuse  for 
more  festivity.  In  December  and  January,  15 18 — 1519, 
the  court  was  at  Paris  entertaining  with  jousts,  banquets, 
balls  and  hunting  parties  four  English  ambassadors,  the 
Lord  Chamberlain,  the  Prior  of  St.  John's,  the  Captain  of 
Guisnes,  and  the  Bishop  of  Ely.^  On  December  23rd,  the 
King  offered  these  ambassadors  one  of  the  most  magnifi- 
cent royal  banquets  recorded  in  history.  It  was  given  in 
the  great  court  of  the  Bastille,  which  for  the  purpose  was 
roofed  with  sail-cloth  and  lined  within  by  pleached  box, 
from  which  hung  oranges  and  other  fruits.  The  feast  was 
followed  by  a  dance,  and  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning 
the  entertainment  closed  with  an  elaborate  collation  of 
sweetmeats  served  by  court  ladies. 

On  January  ist  La  Tremoille  followed  suit,  and  pre- 
sented the  ambassadors  with  a  sumptuous  repast  in  his 
Hotel  des  Creneaux.^  According  to  the  family  records, 
this  was  a  truly  Gargantuan  feast.  The  bill,  preserved 
for  us  by  the  piety  or  admiration  of  the  host's  descendants, 
spreads  itself  over  nine  royal  octavo  pages.  Every  variety 
of  edible  fish,  flesh  and  fowl  seems  to  have  been  there. 
The  board  groaned  beneath  25  lbs.  of  beef,  twenty- 
three  fat  capons,  eight  pigs,  twelve  dozen  larks,  seventy- 
one  pigeons,  twelve  large  hams,  five  salmon,  twenty-four 
eels,  1,100  herrings,  800  oysters,  snails,  of  which  we  hope 
the  English  guests  did  not  partake,  and  all  manner  of 
other  fish.  The  venison  the  King  himself  provided. 
Of  the  salad  let  modern  housewives  take  note  :  there  were 

1  "  Cal.  St.  p.  Yen.  II."  (1509 — 1519),  480,  482,  485  et  seq. 

2  Probably  the  magnificent  mansion  he  had  recently  built  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  Latin  quarter.  It  was  afterwards  known  as  the  Hotel 
de  La  Tremoille.     See  post,  274,  n.  5. 


86  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

eighteen  dishes  of  it,  arranged  artistically  in  the  form 
of  flowers  and  foliage,  and  its  ingredients  were 
endive,  beetroot  and  olives.  Fruits  and  sweetmeats 
were  not  lacking,  and  the  long  list  of  spices  used  in  the 
cooking  would  excite  envy  in  the  breast  of  any  votary 
of  the  cuHnary  art.  The  King  lent  silver  plate,  and  so 
did  several  of  the  nobles.  Twenty-six  lbs.  of  candles 
illuminated  the  feast,  the  total  cost  of  which  amounted 
to  676  livres  tournois. 

In  La  Tremoille's  recently  replenished  purse  another 
big  hole  was  made  in  the  following  year,  when  the  Count 
and  his  grandson  accompanied  King  Francis  to  that 
culminating  glory  of  these  festive  years,  the  Field  of  the 
Cloth  of  Gold.  It  was,  as  Michelet  calls  it,  "a  duel  of 
expenditure,"  for  the  nobles  of  England  and  France, 
each  nation  vying  with  the  other  in  magnificence,  sold 
and  mortgaged  castles  and  lands  to  procure  for  the 
adorning  of  themselves  and  their  retainers  gold  and  silver, 
jewels,  satins  and  velvets.  In  such  grandeur  La  Tremoille 
could  not  be  behind  the  rest.  And  for  his  own  and  his 
grandson's  accoutring  no  doubt  his  bride's  fortune 
proved  useful. 

From  the  family  accounts  we  learn  that  it  was  to  his 
apothecary,  Jean  Billard,  that  Louis  entrusted  the  care 
of  his  equipment,  the  ordering  of  cloaks  in  the  Spanish 
mode  fashioned  out  of  "  cloth  of  velvet,"  a  robe  of  violet 
velvet  and  sundry  other  garments,  as  well  as  clothes 
for  the  men-at-arms  and  coverings  for  their  horses,  and 
the  painting  of  the  Count's  standard,  with  three  banners 
for  trumpeters  and  cornets  to  boot. 

Thus  equipped,  we  may  be  sure  that  old  Louis  and  young 
Francis  de  La  Tremoille  ruffled  it  well  among  the  glittering 
splendours  of  the  golden  field.     And  there  it  may  have 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  87 

been  that  for  the  young  Prince  of  Talmond  was  arranged 
that  iUustrious  marriage  with  the  heiress  of  the  house 
of  Laval,  which  was  celebrated  in  the  following  year. 

The  Prince's  grandmother  had  been  a  princess  of  the 
royal  Bourbon  house,  his  mother  first  cousin  to  the  King, 
and  now  the  Prince  himself  was  to  marry  a  King's  grand- 
daughter. The  grandfather  of  his  Breton  bride,  Anne  de 
Laval,  was  Frederick  of  Arragon,  King  of  Naples.  And 
through  their  Neapolitan  ancestors  we  shall  find  Anne 
de  Laval's  La  Tremoille  descendants  calling  themselves 
Princes  of  Tarente  or  Taranto,  and  for  two  centuries 
claiming  the  Neapolitan  crown. -^ 

With  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold  the  fat  years  of 
feasting  came  to  an  end.  In  the  lean  years  which  followed 
the  veteran  Count  Louis  rendered  valiant  service  to  France. 
The  Kings  who  had  so  cordially  embraced  at  Ardres 
were  soon  falling  out.  An  English  army  invaded  the 
north,  while  the  Emperor  attacked  France  in  the  south. 
Had  it  not  been  for  La  Tremoille's  skilful  conduct  of  the 
northern  campaign,  the  English  might  have  marched  on 
Paris.  But,  though  so  badly  provided  with  troops 
that,  as  soon  as  he  had  effectually  defended  one  stronghold 
he  must  needs  move  his  men  to  secure  the  next.  Count 
Louis  succeeded  in  driving  back  the  English,  not,  however, 
before  they  had  approached  to  within  twenty  miles  of 
Paris. 

This  was  in  the  year  1422,  just  after  Bourbon,  Constable 
of  France,  Count  Louis'  nephew  had  inflicted  a  crushing 
blow  on  his  country  by  deserting  to  the  enemy. 

In  the  following  year  we  find  Louis  enjoying  a  brief 
interval  of  repose  and  relaxation  at  court,  where  on 
July  12th  he  paid  four  livres  of  Tours  to  the  King's 
1  See  post,  155  and  n.  2  and  289  and  n.  i. 


88  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

cornets  and  trumpeters  in  acknowledgment  of  "  the 
pastime  which  they  had  that  day  afforded  him." 

After  spending  some  months  in  Burgundy  defending 
his  province  against  imperial  attack,  Louis  joined  his 
King  near  Avignon  in  October,  1524,  and  then  for  the 
eighth^  and  last  time  crossed  the  Alps  into  Italy  to  take 
part  in  the  famous  Pavia  campaign. 

The  object  of  this  expedition  was  the  reconquest  of 
Milan.  Making  straight  for  this  city,  Francis,  although 
he  failed  to  capture  the  citadel,  succeeded  in  taking 
the  town  and  driving  out  the  imperial  generals  Bourbon, 
Pescara  and  Charles  de  Lannoy.  The  two  latter  en- 
trenched themselves  in  the  neighbouring  town  of  Lodi, 
while  Bourbon  crossed  the  Alps  to  raise  reinforcements 
in  Switzerland  and  Germany. 

Then  the  King  made  a  fatal  mistake,  which  was  to 
cost  him  his  liberty  and  La  Tremoille  his  life.  Instead 
of  immediately  besieging  the  enemy  in  Lodi,  Francis 
wasted  the  winter  months  in  a  useless  siege  of  Pavia,  and, 
filled  with  vain  confidence  by  his  victory  at  Milan,  disas- 
trously weakened  his  army  by  detaching  a  large  part 
of  it  under  the  Duke  of  Albany  for  the  conquest  of  Naples. 

December  and  January,  the  last  months  of  his  life. 
La  Tremoille  passed  in  the  great  camp  which  the  French 
constructed  round  Pavia.  It  was  like  a  huge  town, 
with  a  population  of  merchants,  victuallers  and  women 
as  well  as  soldiers,  amounting  to  no  less  than  70,000 
souls. 

The  King,  given  up  to  gaiety  and  all  the  soft  volup- 
tuousness of  his  beloved  Italy,  was  residing  in  the  neigh- 
bouring chateau  of  Mirabello.     But  his  generals  were 

1  The  dates  of  Count  Louis'  Italian  campaigns  are  1494,  1500,  1503, 
1507.  1509.  1513,  1515.  1524— 1525. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  89 

not  so  comfortably  quartered,  and  La  Tremoille  may 
have  been  one  of  those  who  was  reduced  to  go  and  warm 
his  hands  at  his  royal  master's  fire. 

Meanwhile  the  imperial  forces  were  concentrating  at 
Lodi.  Bourbon  had  arrived  with  reinforcements,  and 
late  in  January  the  imperial  commanders  decided  to 
come  to  the  relief  of  the  inhabitants  of  Pavia,  who  were 
reduced  to  great  straits.  On  January  24th  the  imperialists 
left  Lodi,  and  a  week  later  took  up  their  position  within 
a  mile  of  the  French  outposts  before  Pavia.  The  French 
were  now  as  if  besieged  between  Pavia  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  relieving  force  on  the  other.  Some  weeks 
were  occupied  in  skirmishing  between  the  two  armies. 
But  on  February  25th,  the  imperialists  having  during 
the  night  obtained  possession  of  the  park  of  Mirabello, 
the  battle  was  engaged. 

Conflicting  accounts  render  it  difficult  to  ascertain  what 
actually  took  place  at  Pavia.  But  concerning  the  chief 
incident  of  the  battle,  there  is  no  doubt :  the  King, 
accompanied  by  La  Tremoille,  threw  himself  so  rashly 
upon  his  enemies  that  his  infantry  found  it  impossible 
to  follow.  Francis  and  the  gentlemen  of  his  household 
were  isolated. 

La  Tremoille,  ever  in  the  thickest  of  the  melee,  was 
wounded  in  the  face  beneath  the  eye  ;  and  his  horse, 
likewise  wounded,  was  about  to  fall  beneath  him,  when  a 
certain  Jacques  de  la  Brosse,  who  had  once  been  the 
Count's  page,  offered  Louis  his  horse.  Then,  remounted, 
La  Tremoille,  despite  his  wound,  hastened  to  his 
sovereign's  side,  but  only  to  fall,  disabled  by  an  arquebus 
shot,  and  this  time  mortally  wounded. 

Close  at  hand  at  this  moment  was  La  Tremoille 's 
grandson,  Francis,  who,  to  avenge  his  grandsire's  death, 


90  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

throwing  himself  into  the  heart  of  the  battle,  was  sur- 
rounded by  foes  on  every  hand,  and  taken  prisoner. 

A  similar  fate  had  overtaken  the  King  himself,  while 
many  of  La  Tremoille's  companions-in-arms  lay  with  him 
dead  upon  the  battlefield. 

Like  most  warriors,  Count  Louis  had  looked  forward  to 
death  in  action.  But  he  who  had  so  often  seen  the  dead 
bodies  of  wounded  generals  lying  defaced  and  un- 
recognisable had  conceived  a  curious  design  for  diverting 
from  himself  a  fate  so  undesirable  ;  he  had  told  his 
friends  that  in  the  case  of  his  being  killed  in  battle  his 
body  might  be  identified  by  the  unusual  length  of  the 
nail  of  his  big  toe  on  the  right  foot,  and  Bouchet  relates 
that  it  was  by  this  mark  that  the  Count's  body  was 
recognised.  It  was  borne  into  one  of  the  churches  of 
Pavia.  There  it  remained  until,  embalmed  with  myrrh 
and  aloes,  and  enclosed  in  a  cofhn,  it  was  conveyed  in 
great  pomp  and  magnificence  from  Italy  into  France,  and 
by  way  of  Lyons,  Loudun,  and  He  Bouchard  to  Thouars, 
where  in  the  church  of  Notre  Dame  it  found  its  last 
resting-place  in  a  gorgeous  tomb  by  the  side  of  Gabrielle 
de  Bourbon. 

On  the  day  of  Louis'  funeral  at  Thouars,  tidings 
reached  the  castle  that  the  new  Count  Francis  had 
returned  to  Lyons,  having  paid  his  ransom  of  no  less  than 
9,000  crowns  to  his  three  captors,  Francesco  di  Miranda, 
Alvaro  di  Cartagena  and  Andrea  di  Malo. 

Exorbitant  as  was  the  amount  of  this  ransom,  Francis 
was  well  able  to  pay  it ;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  his  wife  had 
brought  him  a  huge  fortune.  The  new  Count  is  said  to 
have  been  the  wealthiest  of  all  the  La  Tremoilles. 

Without  playing  so  important  a  part  in  public  affairs 
as  his  grandfather,  Count  Francis  served  the  King  faith- 


p-' 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  91 

fully  in  his  Italian  wars.  But  it  is  chiefly  as  a  provincial 
administrator  that  he  is  remembered.  As  lieutenant- 
general  of  Poitou,  Saintonge  and  Aunis,  he  protected 
agriculture.  Like  his  great-grandfather,  the  first  Louis, 
he  was  an  ideal  country  gentleman,  and  he  died  peace- 
fully in  his  bed,  in  his  chateau  of  Thouars,  at  the 
comparatively  early  age  of  forty. 

Two  years  before  his  death  he  had  been  charged  by  the 
King  to  welcome  to  Poitiers  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  on 
his  progress  through  France. 

The  eldest  of  his  eleven  children,  a  third  Louis, 
succeeded  to  his  domains,  and,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next 
chapter,  threw  himself  heartily  into  the  struggle  between 
Catholics  and  Protestants. 


92  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  LA  TREMOILLES  AND   THE   WARS   OF  RELIGION 

LOUIS    III.,    VICOMTE    AND   THEN    DUG    DE   THOUARS,    I522 — 1577- 
CLAUDE,    DUG    DE   THOUARS,    I566 — 1604. 

CHARLOTTE    DE   LA   TREMOILLE,    PRINGESSE  DE  GONDE,   1568 — 1629. 
HER    SON,    HENRI    DE    BOURBON,    FRINGE    DE   GONDE,    I588 — 1646. 

The  French  Wars  of  Religion  followed  hard  upon  the 
conclusion  of  the  Italian  campaigns.  When  the  safety- 
valve  for  baronial  turbulence  afforded  by  foreign  warfare 
was  closed,  then  the  nobles  turned  against  each  other  at 
home.  For  half  a  century  they  wasted  France  in  a  civil 
war,  which  was  fought  in  the  name  of  religion,  but  was 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  struggle  between  rival 
political  factions. 

In  this  conflict  the  La  Tremoilles  played  an  important 
part,  fighting  first  on  the  Catholic  side,  and  then  for  a 
generation  espousing  the  Protestant  cause. 

Louis  1 11.,^  eldest  son  of  Francis  de  La  Tremoille, 
having  served  in  the  Catholic  army  during  the  early 
years  of  the  civil  war,  was,  in  1576,  appointed  lieutenant- 
general  of  a  Poitevin  army  raised  to  fight  against  the 
Protestant  leader,  the  Comte  de  Lude.  Only  for  a  few 
months,  however,  did  La  Tremoille  occupy  this  prominent 
post ;  for  in  the  following  year,  while  besieging  the  strong- 

1  1522 — 1577.  In  1550  he  was  sent  to  England  as  one  of  the  hostages 
for  the  execution  of  the  Treaty  of  Boulogne. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  93 

hold  of  Melle,  he  was  stricken  with  an  illness  which 
proved  fatal  on  the  very  day  of  the  town's  surrender/ 

Louis  was  one  of  the  richest  of  the  La  Tremoilles. 
Partly  on  this  account,  but  also  as  a  reward  for  his 
services  to  the  crown,  Charles  IX.  had  converted  the 
viscounty  of  Thouars  into  a  duchy,^  with  the  unusual 
proviso,  that  in  default  of  heirs  male  it  was  to  descend 
through  the  female  line.  In  1594  Louis  had  married 
Jeanne  de  Montmorency,  daughter  of  the  great  Constable 
Anne.  By  her  he  left  two  children,  a  son  Claude,  born  in 
1566,  and  a  daughter  Charlotte,  two  years  younger. 

In  the  province  of  Poitou,  and  especially  in  the  town 
of  Thouars,  during  Louis'  lifetime,  Protestantism  had 
been  making  rapid  progress.  Berthre  de  Bournisseaux,  a 
Catholic  historian,^  relates  that  a  whole  convent  of  nuns 
had  been  converted  and  conducted  by  their  abbess  to 
Geneva,  there  to  publicly  abjure  the  religion  of  their 
fathers.  Meanwhile,  their  fellow -converts  at  home  were 
plundering  churches,  breaking  sacred  vases,  and  throwing 
to  the  four  winds  all  the  holy  relics  they  could  lay  hands 
on.  Ascending  the  pulpit  of  the  church  of  Notre  Dame, 
at  Thouars  (again  we  cite  the  Catholic  historian),  an  ex- 
Carmelite,  united  in  unholy  wedlock  to  a  woman  whose 
husband  was  still  alive,  uttered  such  terrible  blasphemies 
that  the  scandalised  congregation  rose,  dragged  him  from 
the  church  and  straightway  hanged  him  in  the  street 
outside.* 

All  these  disorders  Duke  Louis  seems  to  have  regarded 
with  a  serenity  unworthy  of  so  stalwart  a  defender  of 
the  faith.     It  was  not  until  the  Huguenots  had  introduced 

^  March  25th,  1577. 

2  By  letters  patent,  registered  October  21st,  1563. 
8  "  Hist  de  la  Ville  de  Thouars  "  (1824),  173  et  seq. 
*  September  30th,  1561. 


94  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

into  Thouars  for  their  protection  a  company  of  500  foot 
soldiers,  lodging  them  in  the  churches  and  the  priests' 
houses,  that  the  Duke  somewhat  tardily  put  forth  his 
hand  and  asserted  his  authority.  The  Catholic  worship, 
which  had  for  some  months  been  suspended,  was  restored. 
But  down  to  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
Calvinism  continued  to  flourish  in  Thouars  and  the 
neighbourhood. 

It  was  in  troublous  times,  therefore,  that  Louis*  death 
left  his  wife,  Jeanne  de  Montmorency,  a  widow,  and  his 
heir,  the  young  Duke  Claude,  her  son,  but  a  boy  of  eleven 
years  old.  But  Jeanne  was  as  resolute  a  person  as  her 
father  ;  and  she  brought  up  her  children  with  great 
strictness.  Probably  not  a  little  of  Claude's  high  principle 
and  unswerving  devotion  to  duty  was  due  to  his  mother's 
influence  and  training. 

Hitherto,  with  the  one  exception  of  Gabrielle  de 
Bourbon,  there  has  been  little  to  say  of  the  La  Tremoille 
women.  But  we  are  now  approaching  a  period  when  the 
women  of  this  great  family  in  vigorous  character  and 
decisive  action  vied  with  the  men,  and  even  surpassed 
them. 

Two  years  after  her  husband's  death,  the  Duchesse  de 
La  Tremoille,  believing  Claude  to  have  learnt  all  that  his 
home  tutor  could  teach  him,  sent  her  boy  to  Paris  with  a 
letter  ^  to  one.  Monsieur  Rouhet,  whom  she  requested 
to  select  from  the  colleges  a  learned  man  [un  homme  docte) 
worthy  to  instruct  her  son. 

As  soon  as  he  was  of  an  age  to  bear  arms  Claude  took 
service  in  the  Catholic  army,  and  was  soon  commanding 
a  company  of  cavalry  for  King  Henry  HL     But  even 

*  See  "  Jeanne  de  Montmorency  .  .  .  et  sa  Fille,  la  Princesse  de 
Cond6/*  published  by  the  Due  de  La  Tremoille,  1895,  p.  5. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  95 

in  those  early  years  Claude  must  have  been  a  strenuous 
youth,  whom  so  decadent  a  monarch  was  not  likely  to 
inspire  with  any  enthusiasm.  Moreover,  contact  with 
the  Calvinists  of  Poitou  had  doubtless  already  shaken 
Claude's  orthodoxy.  So  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that 
when,  in  1585,  the  Duke  de  Mercceur  at  the  head  of  a 
Catholic  force  invaded  Poitou,  the  young  Duke  de  La 
Tremoille  threw  in  his  lot  with  the  Protestants  and  joined 
Henry  de  Bourbon,  Prince  de  Conde,  who  was  besieging 
Brouage. 

It  was  indicative  of  his  brave  and  resolute  spirit  that 
Claude  de  La  Tremoille  should  have  joined  the  Protestants 
at  a  time  when  their  cause  seemed  most  desperate.  In 
Holland  in  the  previous  year  the  champion  of  the 
Protestant  faith,  William  the  Silent,  had  been  shot  by  a 
Catholic  fanatic.  In  England  plots  were  thickening  round 
Queen  Elizabeth.  In  Spain,  King  Philip  was  preparing 
the  great  Armada,  designed,  with  one  blow,  to  destroy  the 
reformed  religion  in  these  Islands.  In  France  this  year, 
1585,  witnessed  the  formation  of  the  great  Catholic 
League,  and  the  papal  excommunication  of  the  Protestant 
leaders,  Henry  of  Navarre  and  his  cousin  the  Prince  de 
Conde. 

One  of  the  results  of  Claude's  joining  the  Protestants 
at  Brouage  was  that  during  the  siege  their  leader  Conde 
went  off  to  the  La  Tremoille  castle  of  Taillebourg,  there 
to  pay  his  addresses  to  Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille,  Claude's 
sister  Charlotte,  then  a  maiden  of  seventeen. 

Conde  had  for  eleven  years  been  a  sonless  widower, 
his  first  wife,  Marie  de  Cleves,  having  died  in  1574.  And 
Charlotte's  beauty  and  intelligence,  so  we  are  told,  were 
already  famous  throughout  the  land.  Her  intelligence 
we  may  credit,  but  her  beauty — if  we  may  judge  from  her 


96  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

portraits — would  not  have  appealed  to  the  modern 
suitor.  The  high,  aggressive  forehead,  the  prominent 
eyes,  heavy  nose  and  thick  lips,  suggest  ability  and 
intelligence.  But  from  the  pictures  of  Charlotte  we 
possess,  it  is  hard  to  guess  wherein  lay  that  charm, 
which — if  we  may  believe  the  gossips  of  the  day — capti- 
vated two  royal  Henries  in  succession.^ 

Neither  had  Conde  any  physical  attractions  to  recom- 
mend him :  small  and  insignificant  of  figure,  with 
prominent  features  and  abundant  wrinkles,  he  looked 
considerably  older  than  his  age,  which  was  then  thirty- 
three.  Yet  these  two  plain  persons — for  we  must  call 
Charlotte  plain — were  about  to  engage  in  one  of  the 
most  thrilling  romances  of  history,  by  the  side  of  which 
many  a  romance  of  fiction  grows  dull  and  pale. 

Charlotte,  before  she  saw  Conde,  had  made  him 
her  hero.  His  leadership  of  the  Protestant  party  since 
1574  had  won  him  a  reputation  for  valour  and  prowess, 
which  appealed  to  Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille's  imagination, 
quickened  by  the  perusal  of  those  popular  romances  of 
chivalry,  which  she  had  eagerly  devoured  in  secret  when- 
ever she  could  escape  from  her  mother's  supervision. 

Conde,  before  he  saw  Charlotte,  had  been  attracted 
by  the  idea  of  marriage  with  the  wealthy,  clever  and 
**  beautiful  "  Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille.  And  both  parties, 
when  they  met,  remained  enamoured  of  each  other. 

The  unconventional  conditions  of  their  first  meeting 
heightened  the  romance  of  their  relationship.  For  the 
Duchess  de  La  Tremoille,  journeying  from  Thouars  to 

1  The  scandalmonger,  Brantome  (see  "  CEuvres,"  ed.  Lalanne,  IX. 
Ill),  accuses  her  of  having  been  Henry  III.'s  mistress.  That  she 
was  the  mistress  of  Henry  IV.  is  suggested  in  the  article  in  "La  Bio- 
graphie  Universelle,"  on  what  authority  we  cannot  divine,  all  the 
evidence  we  can  discover  going  to  prove  that  there  was  never  any 
love  lost  between  Henry  of  Navarre  and  the  Princesse  de  Conde. 


[A.  Giraudon,  Photo 
CHARLOTTE   DE   LA  TREMOILLE,  PRINCESSE   DE   CONDE 
From  a  portrait  by  Fran9ois  Quesnet  in  the  Biblioth^que  Nationale,  Paris 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  97 

Taillebourg  to  chaperon  her  daughter,  had  been  delayed. 
So  Charlotte  in  solitary  state  received  her  suitor  and 
entertained  him  with  the  perfect  assurance  of  seventeen 
summers,  and  the  perfect  serenity  of  une  grande  dame. 

To  Conde,  Charlotte  appeared  the  most  beautiful  woman 
in  the  world.  To  Charlotte,  Conde  appeared  the  greatest 
hero.  He  came  to  her  but  poorly  attended,  like  a  typical 
knight-errant,  with  a  following  of  only  three  or  four 
men-at-arms.  That  her  lover  should  thus  for  her  sake, 
and  in  open  war,  hazard  his  precious  life,  made  Charlotte 
adore  him  more  than  ever.  The  garrison  of  her  castle 
numbered  no  more  than  twenty-four  men-at-arms. 
She  trembled  for  her  Prince's  safety.  But  she  did  her 
best  to  minimise  the  risk  he  was  running.  At  night, 
while  her  suitor  slept  soundly  after  his  journey,  this 
maiden  of  seventeen  kept  watch  and  ward.  She  super- 
intended the  changing  of  the  sentinels,  and  patrolled 
the  ramparts,  peering  out  into  the  darkness  to  make  sure 
that  no  danger  threatened  her  sleeping  hero.  Before  his 
departure  on  the  morrow  Conde  recorded  in  writing  a 
promise  to  marry  his  brave  hostess. 

But,  alas  !  before  that  promise  could  be  kept,  danger 
and  disaster  overtook  the  adventurous  lover.  Leaving 
his  infantry  to  continue  the  siege  of  Brouage,  Conde 
proceeded  from  Taillebourg  to  attack  Angers.  On  the 
way  there  he  met  Madame  de  La  Tremoille.  At  first  the 
Duchess  had  favoured  the  proposed  marriage  ;  but  now, 
as  Conde  wrote  hurriedly  to  Charlotte,  for  "  some  unknown 
reason  "  she  looked  coldly  on  his  suit.  This  "  unknown 
reason"  is  not  difficult  to  divine  ;  the  King  was  said  to 
have  declared  against  the  union,  and  Conde's  prospects 
were  steadily  darkening. 

Having  met  with  a  humiliating  repulse  before  the  walls 

C.R.  H 


98  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

of  Angers,  the  Prince,  accompanied  by  Claude  de  La 
Tremoille,  fled  to  St.  Malo,  where  he  took  ship  for 
Guernsey.  And  there,  from  October  to  January,^  he 
remained  in  exile,  vainly  soliciting  help  from  England. 

Meanwhile  Jeanne  de  Montmorency  had  joined  her 
daughter  at  Taillebourg.  There  the  stern  Duchess  found 
herself  defied  by  the  iron  will  of  her  daughter  of  seventeen. 
Charlotte  refused  to  break  off  her  engagement  to  Conde  ; 
she  likewise  refused  at  her  mother's  bidding  to  surrender 
her  brother's  castle  of  Taillebourg  to  the  approaching 
Catholic  army. 

Jeanne,  in  high  dudgeon,  was  reduced  to  leaving  her 
daughter  in  command  at  Taillebourg.  And  shortly 
afterwards  the  castle  was  besieged  by  the  King's  troops. 

Taillebourg,  as  we  have  said,  was  but  meagrely  garri- 
soned. It  was  also  poorly  provisioned,  as  well  as  being 
surrounded  by  the  town  and  difficult  to  defend.  Nothing 
daunted,  however,  Charlotte,  like  her  niece  the  Lady  of 
Lathom,  fifty  years  later,  made  every  preparation  for  a 
gallant  defence.  The  only  cannon  she  possessed,  two 
small  culverins,  she  placed  at  the  gateway  leading  to  the 
town,  and  in  the  night,  letting  one  of  her  servants  down  by 
a  rope  from  a  castle  window,  she  sent  him  with  letters 
imploring  help  from  the  nearest  Protestant  army.  This 
force,  commanded  by  her  kinsman,  the  Comte  de  Laval, 
quickly  came  to  her  aid  and  dispersed  the  besiegers. 

Encouraged  by  her  success  at  Taillebourg,  this  girl 
of  seventeen  next  began  to  scheme  for  her  lover's  return 
to  France,  and  with  this  object  she  went  to  La  Rochelle. 

One  day  in  January,  just  as  Conde  and  La  Tremoille, 
disappointed  in  their  hope  of  help  from  England,  were 
reduced  to  the  lowest  depths  of  despair,  they  perceived 

I  1585— 1586. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  99 

approaching  the  Guernsey  harbour  two  French  ships  of 
war.  These  vessels  had  been  sent  by  Charlotte  from 
La  Rochelle.  They  were  commanded  by  that  stalwart 
Protestant,  that  "  Pope  of  the  Huguenots,"  as  he  was 
called,  M.  du  Plessis-Mornay,  who  bore  a  letter  from 
Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille  to  her  betrothed. 

Joyfully  returning  to  La  Rochelle  on  the  warship,  the 
exiles  were  welcomed  by  their  fair  deliverer,  who,  a  few 
days  later,  on  January  19th,  was  formally  affianced  to 
her  hero.  And,  on  the  following  March  i6th,  the  consent 
of  Madame  de  La  Tremoille  having  been  gained,  the 
marriage  was  celebrated  very  simply,  but,  as  it  would 
seem,  very  appropriately,  at  that  chateau  of  Taillebourg 
which  the  bride  had  so  gallantly  defended.  Almost 
immediately  afterwards  the  bride  and  bridegroom 
parted,  for  Conde  must  needs  take  the  field  against  the 
Catholics. 

Shortly  before  her  marriage  La  Princesse  de  Conde  had 
publicly  embraced  the  Protestant  faith.  A  year  later 
her  brother  followed  her  example.  Claude  had  been 
slow  to  change  his  opinions,  but  once  having  adopted  the 
religion,  as  it  was  called,  he  became  a  pillar  of  the  faith. 
No  mere  political  Protestant  he  ;  in  the  fervour  of  his 
religious  belief,  and  in  the  strictness  of  his  religious 
practice,  he  resembled  the  English  Puritans.  His  two 
most  intimate  friends  were  those  bulwarks  of  Protes- 
tantism, M.  du  Plessis-Mornay  and  Agrippa  d'Aubigne. 
With  Henry  of  Navarre,  whom  he  regarded  as  a  sceptical 
time-server,  Claude  had  no  sympathy  whatever ;  and 
we  shall  frequently  find  him  withdrawing  from  the  field 
of  action,  disgusted  with  Henry's  two-facedness  :  he 
died  in  the  shadow  of  the  King's  wrath,  "  overwhelmed," 
says  d'Aubign^,  "  by  the  King's  hatred."    At  the  time 

H  2 


100  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

of  the  memorable  reconciliation  between  Henry  and 
d'Aubigne,  so  graphically  related  by  the  latter,  the  King 
reproached  his  former  friend  with  having  cared  too  much 
for  La  Tremoille.  "  It  was  a  friendship  made  in  your 
service,"  objected  d'Aubigne.  "  Yes,"  replied  Henry 
reproachfully,  "  but  when  I  began  to  hate  him,  you  did 
not  cease  from  loving  him."  ^ 

At  Henry's  brilliant  victory  of  Coutras,  won  over  the 
Due  de  Joyeuse  on  October  20th,  1587,  Claude  was  present. 
For  Claude's  sister,  Charlotte,  this  Protestant  victory  of 
Coutras  was  to  be  fraught  with  the  direst  consequences. 
The  Prince  de  Conde,  who  took  part  in  the  action,  by 
a  fall  from  his  horse  sustained  an  internal  injury  to  which 
the  ignorance  of  sixteenth  century  surgery  attached  no 
importance,  not  even  when  for  five  months  it  was  followed 
by  frequent  attacks  of  fever,  violent  pain  in  the  stomach, 
and  occasional  sickness.  And  when,  on  March  5th,  1588, 
Conde  died,  the  doctors  regarded  his  death  as  so  sudden, 
and  so  mysterious  that  they  demanded  a  post-mortem 
examination,  as  the  result  of  which  they  declared  the 
Prince  to  have  died  of  poisoning.  This  was  the 
verdict  of  five  physicians  and  surgeons  ;  and  no  one 
called  it  in  question  except  the  medical  faculty  of 
Montpellier.  But  not  even  the  Montpellier  doctors 
seem  to  have  connected  Conde's  death  with  his  fall  at 
Coutras. 

Even  more  disastrous  than  the  doctors'  obtusity  was 
the  malice  which  accused  Charlotte  of  being  her  husband's 
murderer.  This  terrible  charge  was  unsupported  by  a 
particle  of  evidence  save  a  few  wild  words  uttered  by  one 
of  the  witnesses  under  torture,  and  afterwards  denied. 
Before  her  marriage   Charlotte   may   have   been   fast ; 

*  D'Aubign^,  "  M6moires,"  ed.  le  Baron  de  Ruble,  108. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  loi 

as  we  have  said  ^  she  was  the  reputed  mistress  of  Henry  III. 
But  that  after  her  marriage  to  Conde  she  carried  on  an 
intrigue  with  her  page,  in  order  to  marry  whom  she 
murdered  her  husband,  which  was  the  charge  brought 
against  her,  would  be  highly  improbable  even  if  the  cause 
of  Condi's  death  were  less  obvious. 

In  those  days  lack  of  evidence  mattered  nothing,  and 
Charlotte,  though  she  was  never  brought  to  trial,  was 
universally  regarded  as  her  husband's  murderess,  and  for 
seven  years,  until  1595,  kept  in  the  strictest  confinement. 
Had  she  not  been  expecting  a  child  at  the  time  of  the 
Prince's  death  she  would  probably  have  been  subjected 
to  torture. 

When  in  her  prison  of  St.  Jean  d'Angely^  on  Sep- 
tember ist,  1588,  Charlotte  gave  birth  to  a  son,  his 
legitimacy  was  questioned.  It  was  not  until  four  years 
later,  when  Henry  of  Navarre  had  ascended  the  French 
throne,  and  when,  being  without  legitimate  heirs,  it  suited 
his  purpose  to  make  Charlotte's  son  his  godchild  and  heir- 
apparent  to  the  French  crown,  that  the  King  acknow- 
ledged him  as  Conde's  son  and  a  Prince  of  the  Blood. 
The  King's  recognition  of  her  son's  legitimacy  greatly 
improved  Charlotte's  position  by  helping  to  clear  her 
from  the  charge  of  unfaithfulness  to  her  husband. 

Soon  afterwards,  the  severity  of  her  captivity  was  so 
far  relaxed  tfcat  she  was  allowed  to  leave  her  prison 
twice  a  week,  in  order  to  attend  divine  service.  Yet, 
though  still  untried  and  unconvicted,  she  was  regarded 
as  a  murderess.  And  the  Calvinist  ministers  of  St.  Jean 
d'Angely  refused  to  administer  the  Sacrament  to  her. 
In  vain  was  there  shown  to  them  a  letter  from  the  King 

1  See  ante,  96,  n. 

2  In  the  province  of  Saintonge,  on  the  high  road  from  Saintes  to 
Poitiers,  and  about  sixty  miles  from  the  latter. 


102  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

permitting  to  the  Princess  all  the  consolations  of  her 
religion.  The  Protestant  pastors  remained  obdurate. 
Then  it  became  necessary  for  the  Duke  of  Thouars  him- 
self to  interfere,  and  the  influence  of  so  powerful  a  pillar 
of  the  Reformed  Church  effected  what  the  command  of 
an  apostate  King  had  failed  to  accomplish  :  at  the  Duke's 
request  a  special  consistory  was  summoned,  which  granted 
the  Princess  the  privilege  she  coveted. 

During  all  these  years  Charlotte  had  had  no  oppor- 
tunity of  clearing  herself  from  the  infamous  charge  under 
which  she  laboured.  Time  and  again  she  had  appealed 
for  judgment  to  the  Parlement  of  Paris,  the  highest 
court  in  the  realm,  and  the  only  one  which  she  as  a 
princess  held  entitled  to  pass  judgment  upon  her. 

But  it  was  not  until  1595,  seven  years  after  her  hus- 
band's death,  that  the  King  allowed  her  appeal.  Then 
at  length  she  was  freed  from  captivity,  and  permitted  to 
leave  St.  Jean  d'Angely  on  the  solemn  promise,  for  the 
performance  of  which  her  brother  and  other  great  nobles 
stood  surety,  to  appear  before  the  Parliament  at  Paris  on 
the  following  July  22nd. 

There  and  then  the  Princess  de  Conde  did  duly  appear  ; 
but  her  two  chief  accusers,  her  brothers-in-law,  the  Prince 
de  Conti  and  the  Comte  de  Soissons,  failed  to  answer  the 
Parliament's  summons,  and  so  in  their  default  there  was 
nothing  to  be  done  but  to  declare  the  accused  innocent. 
Thus  at  length,  after  seven  interminable  years  of  terrible 
suffering,  Charlotte's  ordeal  came  to  an  end.  But  there 
is  little  doubt  that  her  acquittal  was  merely  a  political 
move  on  the  part  of  the  King.  It  did  not  suit  him  for  the 
mother  of  his  heir  to  lie  in  prison  under  the  accusation  of 
murder. 

Indeed,   all  the  while  the  Princess  may  have  been 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  103 

merely  the  King's  scapegoat.  For  there  were  those  who 
were  indined  to  accuse  Henry  himself  of  having  instigated 
his  cousin's  murder.  The  two  Protestant  leaders  had 
been  known  to  be  rivals,  each  jealous  of  the  other's  power 
and  influence.  Against  Henry  there  was  no  more  evi- 
dence than  against  the  Princess.  But  the  King  was 
doubtless  glad  to  have  some  one  on  to  whom  to  cast  the 
opprobrium  of  the  supposed  crime,  until  the  indignation 
it  had  aroused  had  somewhat  abated.  Almost  from  the 
first  Henry  seems  to  have  persuaded  himself  of  Charlotte's 
guilt.  "  A  dangerous  beast  is  a  wicked  woman,"  he 
wrote  to  his  mistress,  La  Belle  Corisande,^  soon  after 
Conde's  death.  And  even  after  he  had  permitted  her 
rehabilitation,  we  doubt  whether  the  King  allowed  him- 
self to  believe  in  her  innocence  ;  for,  while  lavishing 
favours  upon  the  young  Prince  de  Conde,  Henry  always 
treated  Conde's  mother  with  marked  coldness.  Possibly, 
had  it  not  suited  the  royal  purpose,  Charlotte  might 
have  been  left  to  languish  like  a  condemned  criminal 
in  perpetual  captivity. 

In  reviewing  the  history  of  this  cause  celebre,  one  cannot 
help  feeling  astonished  that  a  family  so  powerful  as  the 
La  Tremoilles  should  have  permitted  Charlotte  to  sniffer 
for  so  long  such  terrible  injustice.  Her  mother,  we  know, 
did  all  she  could  to  rehabilitate  her.  As  soon  as  she  heard 
of  the  accusation,  the  Duchess  journeyed  to  St.  Jean 
d'Angely,  but  when  there  she  was  refused  admission  to 
her   daughter's   prison.^    Charlotte's  brother,   however, 

1  "  La  Princesse  de  Conde,"  Ed.  Barth61^my,  236. 

2  M.  Barth616my  represents  Jeanne  as  having  done  nothing  for  her 
daughter  ;  surely  he  cannot  have  seen  a  letter  reproduced  in  "  Jeanne 
de  Montmorency  et  sa  Fille,"  7,  relating  the  Duchess's  journey  to 
St.  Jean  d'Ang61y,  and  her  efforts  on  her  daughter's  behalf.  Several 
other  letters  in  this  volume  prove  how  energetically  the  Duchess 
strove  to  obtain  her  daughter's  freedom  and  justification. 


104  FROM  THE   CRUSADES 

the  powerful  Due  de  Thouars,  was  the  most  influential 
member  of  her  family.     And  we  cannot  discover  that  he 
ever  actively  bestirred  himself  to  clear  his  sister  from  so 
horrible  a  charge.     Apparently  his  only  intervention  on 
her  behalf  was  when  the  ministers  of  St.  Jean  d'Angely 
refused   her   the   Sacrament.      Can   it  have  been  that, 
influenced  by  his  friends,  Conde's  brothers,  he  believed 
his  sister  guilty  of  so  dastardly  a  deed,  and  that  he  only 
changed  his  attitude  towards  her  when  the  sun  of  royal 
favour  seemed  about  to  shine  upon  her  and  hers  ?     With 
Calvinistic   fatalism   La  Tremoille   may   have   regarded 
Charlotte's  sufferings  as  a  divine  punishment  for  her  sins. 
If  Claude  had  heard  Brant ome's  story  of  the  intimacy 
between  the  Princess  and  Henry  HI.,  that  in  itself  would 
have  been  suflicient  to  prejudice  the  Protestant  Duke 
against  his  sister,  and  to  account  for  his  lukewarmness  in 
her  cause.     For,  although  La  Tremoille  was  himself  the 
father  of  a  son  born  out  of  wedlock,  his  Calvinism  rendered 
him  censorious  of  the  failings  of  others,  especially  of  his 
own  sister.     Even  after  Charlotte's  acquittal,  there  is  no 
evidence  of  any  friendly  intercourse  between  the  brother 
and  sister.     During  the  Duke's  last  illness  they  were  on 
such  bad  terms  that  the  Duchess  refused  to  admit  her 
sister-in-law  to  Claude's  chamber,  pleading  that  the  sight 
of  the  Princess  would  kill  her  husband. 

As  a  brother,  therefore,  Claude  de  La  Tremoille  does 
not  win  our  admiration  ;  but  in  his  public  capacity,  as  a 
soldier  and  a  defender  of  the  Protestant  faith  against  the 
attacks  of  the  great  Catholic  League,  he  appears  to 
greater  advantage. 

From  the  time  of  his  return  from  Guernsey  in  1586 
until  the  pacification  of  Nantes  in  1598,  not  a  year  passed 
without  finding  the  Due  de  Thouars  in  the  field  against 


.,.-j^' 
*^^* 


^i^- 


JEANNE    DE    MONTMORENCY,  DUCHESS    DE    LA   TREMOILLE 
From  a  portrait  of  the  Clouet  School 


TO  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  105 

the  enemies  of  Protestantism.  In  1586,  his  horse  was 
killed  under  him  during  an  expedition  in  which  he 
besieged  and  took  his  own  castle  of  Talmond  which  the 
CathoHcs  had  captured.  In  the  next  year  he  commanded 
a  body  of  light  cavalry  at  Coutras,  and  in  1588  covered 
the  attack  on  the  sea-port  of  Marans,  afterwards  inflicting 
a  check  upon  the  Catholics  near  Poitiers.  In  1589  we 
find  him  aiding  the  Bearnais  ^  to  besiege  the  Norman 
chateau  of  La  Garnache,  and  later  in  the  same  year 
saving  Tours  and  the  King,  Henry  III.,  who  was  then 
residing  within  its  walls,  from  capture  by  the  Due  de  May- 
enne,  then  commanding  the  forces  of  the  League.^  In 
this  year,  on  August  4th,  Henry  III.  was  assassinated, 
and  Henry  of  Navarre  became  King  of  France.  But  for 
some  time  a  large  part  of  the  nation  refused  to  recognise 
him.  And,  in  order  to  conciliate  these  malcontents,  the 
King,  on  August  4th,  issued  a  declaration  promising  to 
respect  the  Catholic  religion,  and  to  himself  receive 
instruction  in  it. 

To  so  stalwart  a  Protestant  as  Duke  Claude  this  com- 
promise seemed  a  betrayal  of  the  sacred  cause.  He  re- 
fused to  fight  for  a  Sovereign  pledged  to  support  "  popish 
idolatry,"  and  with  a  large  company  of  Poitevins  and 
Gascon  reformers  withdrew  on  to  his  own  estates. 

In  the  following  year,  however.  La  Tremoille  appears 
to  have  thought  better  of  his  resolution.  Possibly  it  was 
the  invasion  of  France  by  a  Spanish  force  under  the  Duke 
of  Parma,  who  came  to  support  the  League,  that  drew 
the  Duke  once  more  into  action.     Raising  a  force  of 

1  A  name  by  which  the  King  of  Navarre,  also  Seigneur  de  Beam,  was 
frequently  known  among  his  contemporaries.  Catherine  de  Medicis 
used  to  call  him  "  mon  petit  Bearnais." 

2  After  Guise's  assassination  at  Blois,  on  December  23rd,  1588, 
Henry  of  France  and  Henry  of  Navarre  had  agreed  to  make  common 
cause  against  the  League. 


io6  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

500  gentlemen  and  2,000  infantry,  and  equipping  them 
all  at  his  own  expense,  he  joined  the  King's  army,  and, 
by  breaking  up  a  squadron  of  Walloons,  won  his  share 
of  glory  in  the  great  victory  of  Ivry.  Later  he  took 
part  in  the  long  and  unsuccessful  siege  of  Paris.  In 
1592,  he  was  present  at  the  siege  of  Rouen,  which  was 
relieved  by  the  Duke  of  Parma,  and  in  1595  at  Henry's 
final  defeat  of  the  Spaniards  at  Fontaine-Frangaise. 

Though  a  valiant  soldier.  La  Tremoille  had  a  tender 
heart ;  at  least,  when  neither  religion  nor  morals  were 
concerned.  And  his  friend,  D'Aubigne,  relates  ^  how 
one  day,  when  they  were  passing  by  a  place  where 
terrible  slaughter  had  occurred,  the  Duke  turned  pale  and 
trembled,  while  his  companion  took. him  by  the  hand, 
saying :  "  Comrade,  you  must  look  at  these  things 
boldly,  for  in  our  life  one  has  to  accustom  oneself  to  the 
sight  of  death." 

It  was  in  the  year  of  Fontaine-Fran9aise,  in  1595,  that 
the  King  rewarded  La  Tremoille's  services  by  converting 
his  duchy  into  a  duche  pairie,^  or  duchy  with  a  peerage 
attached.  So  Claude  was  now  admitted  to  the  mystic 
circle  of  the  twelve  peers  of  France,  a  company  descended 
from  the  dim  mists  of  the  Dark  Ages,  for  it  had  been 
called  into  being  by  no  less  a  hero  than  the  Emperor 
Charlemagne  himself.  But  it  was  not  until  four  years 
later  that  this  high  honour  was  publicly  conferred  upon 
La  Tremoille.  Then,  by  an  elaborate  ceremony  performed 
by  the  Parlement  of  Paris,  in  the  presence  of  the  King 
and  all  the  court,  he  was  admitted  to  the  company  of 
the  twelve.^ 

1  "  Memoires,"  ed,  le  Baron  de  Ruble,  109. 

2  The  peerage,  unlike  the  duchy,  descended  only  to  heirs  male,  and 
in  their  default  became  extinct. 

•^  It  is  described  by  Louise  de  Coligny,  the  step-mother  of  the  Duchesse 
de  La  Tremoille,  in  one  of  her  letters  to  her  daughter.     See  "  Lettres 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  107 

In  bestowing  a  peerage  upon  La  Tremoille,  Henry's 
motive  was  that  proverbial  gratitude  which  anticipates 
services  to  come  while  rewarding  those  that  are  past, 
for  in  the  settlement  with  the  Protestants  which  was  to 
follow  his  accession  to  the  throne  of  France^  the  King 
hoped  to  gain  the  support  of  the  greatest  Protestant 
leader  in  the  west. 

But  the  Due  de  Thouars  was  not  to  be  bribed  ;  while 
accepting  his  peerage  as  a  royal  acknowledgment  for  all 
he  had  done  in  the  past,  Claude  was  determined  to 
preserve  an  independent  attitude  in  the  future.  In 
1596,  we  find  him  seizing,  for  the  payment  of  the 
Protestant  garrison  of  Thouars,  funds  belonging  to  the 
crown,  and  in  1597  battling  nobly  for  the  Protestant 
cause  in  the  negotiations  which  were  to  terminate  in 
the  Edict  of  Nantes.  To  La  Tremoille's  refusal  to 
compromise  were  largely  due  those  highly  advantageous 
terms  which  the  Edict  granted  to  the  Huguenots. 

In  order  to  discuss  the  terms  of  the  settlement,  a  great 
assembly  of  deputies  from  the  Huguenot  churches  was 
summoned  to  meet  at  Chatellerault  on  June  i6th,  1597. 
And  of  this  assembly  the  Due  de  Thouars  was  elected 
President.  The  fact  that  he  was  then  suffering  from  an 
attack  of  his  lifelong  enemy,  the  gout,  probably  did  not 
increase  his  amenability  ;  and  soon,  disgusted  with  the 
moderate  demands  of  the  deputies,  he  withdrew  to 
Poitou,  and  there  occupied  himself  in  raising  troops  to 
be  employed  against  the  crown  in  case  the  assembly 
failed  to  arrange  a  settlement.  Towards  the  close  of 
the  year,  however,  the  Protestant  churches  persuaded 

de  Louise  de   Coligny  .  .  .  i  .  .  .  Charlotte  Brabantine  de  Nassau, 
Duchesse  de  La  Tr6moille,"  ed.  Marchegay,  1872,  10. 

^  Henry  of  Navarre  was  crowned  King  of  France  at  Chartres  on 
February  27th,  1594. 


io8  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

La  Tremoille  to  return  to  Chatellerault  and  resume  his 
presidency.  Here  he  repulsed  all  the  attempts  of  the 
King's  emissaries,  Gaspard  de  Schomberg  and  the 
President  de  Thou,  to  buy  his  submission  with  the  promise 
of  a  pension  for  himself  and  high  ofhces  for  his  friends. 
Indignantly  addressing  these  tempters,  the  Duke 
exclaimed :  "  Gentlemen,  I  excuse  you,  for  you  come 
from  extinguishing  the  League,  the  members  of  which 
you  found  swollen  with  private  interest.  To  prick  such 
persons  in  their  most  sensitive  spot  was  enough  to  reduce 
the  whole  party  to  nothing.  To  show  you  that  such 
conditions  do  not  exist  among  us,  let  me  tell  you  that 
were  you  to  give  me  half  the  kingdom  and  to  refuse  those 
poor  folk  in  the  hall  liberty  to  serve  God  in  safety,  it 
would  profit  you  nothing.  But  if  you  grant  them  such 
things  as  are  just  and  necessary,  then  the  King  may  hang 
me  at  the  door  of  the  assembly,  and  you  will  still  have 
accomplished  your  mission  and  established  your  work  on 
a  sure  foundation.'' 

Marvelling  at  these  words,  the  President  de  Thou 
turned  to  D'Aubigne,  and  asked  whether  there  were  many 
Huguenots  like  this. 

Still  finding  it  impossible  to  procure  what  he  con- 
sidered fair  terms,  La  Tremoille,  on  March  6th,  again 
withdrew  into  Poitou,  and  this  time  he  did  not  return. 

His  successor  in  the  presidency  proved  more  docile, 
and  on  April  13th,  1598,  the  Edict  of  Nantes  was  signed 
and  declared  irrevocable. 

Considering  the  ideas  of  religious  toleration  then 
prevalent,  the  provisions  of  the  Edict  were  quite  as 
favourable  as  the  Protestants  had  any  right  to  expect. 
They  were  granted  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  in  all 
places  where  it  had  been  established  in  the  two  preceding 


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TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  109 

years,  in  those  named  in  the  Edict  of  1577,  and  in  one 
city  or  town  in  every  district  of  a  seneschal  where  its  estab- 
lishment did  not  infringe  treaties  already  made  with 
Catholics.  Further,  no  less  than  100  strongholds,  some 
of  them  extremely  defensible,  like  Montpellier,  Montauban 
and  La  Rochelle,  were  left  for  eight  years  in  the  possession 
of  the  Protestant  party  ;  and,  while  the  Huguenots  were 
to  appoint  the  governors  of  these  places,  the  Catholic 
state  undertook  to  pay  them  and  their  garrisons.  When 
we  remember  that,  in  addition  to  these  privileges  Protes- 
tants were  to  be  admitted  to  all  colleges,  schools  and 
hospitals,  to  all  offices  and  employments,  without  sub- 
mitting to  any  oath  or  ceremony  contrary  to  their 
conscience,  and  that  they  were  to  be  permitted  to  found 
schools  and  colleges  of  their  own,  we  realise  how  great  was 
the  strength  of  the  Protestant  party  as  established  by  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  and  how  high  a  price  La  Tremoille's  firm- 
ness compelled  King  Henry  to  pay  for  Protestant  support. 

Whilst  at  Chatellerault,  La  Tremoille  had  not  been 
wholly  absorbed  in  the  negotiations  between  the  King  and 
the  Huguenots ;  other  matters,  one  of  which  was  extremely 
personal,  had  engaged  his  attention.  For  some  years  he 
had  been  in  search  of  a  wife,  and  now,  in  1597,  he  was 
proposing  to  marry  Charlotte  Brabantine  de  Nassau,^  the 
daughter  of  that  great  hero  and  martyr  of  Protestantism, 
WiUiam  the  Silent,  Prince  of  Orange.^ 

Wilham  had  been  four  times  married  ;  and  the  lady 
whom  La  Tremoille  was  courting  was  the  Prince's  daughter 
by  his  third  wife,  Charlotte  de  Bourbon,^  daughter  of 
Louis,  Due  de  Montpensier. 

1  Born  at  Antwerp  on  September  27th,  1580. 
^  He  had  been  assassinated  in  1584, 

8  Before  embracing  "  the  religion,"  Charlotte  had  been  abbess  of 
the  Convent  of  Jouarre.     William's  other  wives  were  Anne  d'Egmont, 


no  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

The  marriage  contract  between  Claude  de  La  Tr^moille 
and  Charlotte  of  Nassau,  drawn  up  at  Chatellerault,  was 
signed  by  the  bride's  brother,  Maurice  of  Nassau,  Prince  of 
Orange,  in  his  camp  before  the  town  of  Oldenzeel,  on 
October  23rd,  1597.  The  bridegroom,  being  too  much 
occupied  with  political  affairs  to  leave  his  country,  the 
Princess  Charlotte,  accompanied  by  her  step-mother 
Louise,  Coligny's  daughter,  and  her  governess,  journeyed 
to  Thouars,  where  in  March,  1598,  the  marriage  was 
celebrated. 

At  first  Henry  IV.  seems  to  have  considered  himself 
slighted  because  La  Tremoille  had  not  consulted  him 
before  asking  for  the  hand  of  a  foreign  princess.  So 
Claude  deemed  it  prudent  to  despatch  an  emissary  to 
court  in  order  to  explain  his  action  to  the  King.  The 
emissary  was  apparently  successful,  and  Henry  must 
have  relented,  for  the  year  after  the  wedding  we  find  him 
graciously  granting,  as  a  sign  of  his  favour,  to  the  servants 
of  La  Dame  de  La  Tremoille,  Duchesse  de  Thouars,  per- 
mission to  bear  muskets  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  her  lands,  and  to  shoot  such  game  "  as  are  not 
forbidden  by  royal  ordinances."  ^ 

Both  for  husband  and  wife,  Claude's  marriage  appears 
to  have  been  a  very  happy  one.  Abundant  evidence  of 
their  affection  for  one  another  may  be  found  in  the 
interesting  letters  of  Charlotte's  step-mother,  Louise  de 
Coligny. 

Interspersed  with  family  matters  and  scenes  of  country 
life  are  vivid  descriptions  of  everyday  doings  at  the 
French  court.     There  we  see  the  ladies  quarrelling  over 

Anne,  daughter  of  Maurice,  Elector  of  Saxony,  and  Louise  de  Coligny, 
daughter  of  the  Admiral  and  widow  of  Charles  de  T^ligny,  who  perished 
in  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew. 

1  "  Les  La  Tremoilles  pendant  cinq  Si^cles,"  IV.,  31. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  iii 

precedence,  while  those  whose  privilege  was  beyond 
dispute  sit  serenely  on  their  tabourets  round  Queen  Marie 
de  Medicis,  all  busily  at  work  embroidering  a  vast  counter- 
pane. That  Louise  and  her  step-daughter  were  on  the 
best  of  terms  is  proved  by  the  playful  manner  in  which 
the  Admiral's  daughter  twits  Madame  de  La  Tremoille  for 
her  disgraceful  handwriting  :  "I  am  sure  you  will  find  it 
as  difficult  to  read  mine  as  I  do  yours,"  she  writes, 
"  because  for  you  every  day  calligraphy  must  become 
more  and  more  of  a  lost  art."  ^ 

As  one  reads  these  lively  letters,  one  would  never  dream 
through  what  terrible  tragedies  their  writer  had  lived  in 
earlier  years — that,  by  the  hands  of  Catholic  assassins,  she 
had  been  orphaned  and  twice  widowed.^  Yet  even  over 
Louise's  gaiety  serious  concerns  do  occasionally  cast  their 
shadow  :  that  eternal  lack  of  pence,  which  in  days  of  civil 
war  harassed  all  classes,  makes  itself  felt  in  the  Princess's 
reiterated  request  for  the  repayment  of  certain  monies 
which  she  had  lent  to  the  Duke  at  the  time  of  his  marriage. 
In  her  letters  to  her  step-daughter  the  plaintive  request 
occurs  over  and  over  again  like  a  refrain  ;  "  I  would  come 
and  visit  you  at  Thouars  if  only  La  Tremoille  would  pay 
me  my  money  ;  "  "  I  hear  that  the  Duke  is  to  visit  Paris, 
remind  him  to  bring  my  money  with  him,"  and  so  forth. 
No  wonder  that  Claude  was  in  financial  difficulties,  seeing 
what  vast  sums  he  had  expended  on  the  equipment  and 
maintenance  of  troops  during  the  religious  wars.  But 
in  the  end  the  loan  was  repaid,  although  not  long  after- 
wards we  find  the  Duke  compelled  to  raise  money  by 

1  "  Lettres  de  Louise  de  Coligny  .  .  .  a  .  .  .  Charlotte  Brabantine 
de  Nassau,"  9 — 10. 

2  Her  father,  Admiral  Coligny,  had  been  killed  on  the  eve  of  the 
Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  (1572),  during  which  her  first  husband, 
Charles  de  Teligny,  perished  ;  while  her  second  husband,  William,  Prince 
of  Orange,  was  shot  by  the  fanatic,  G6rard,  shortly  after  their  marriage. 


112  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

selling  to  Maximilien  de  Bethune,  Marquis  de  Rosny,  the 
fine  old  La  Tremoille  chateau  of  Sully,  which,  as  will  be 
remembered,  had  been  in  the  family  for  over  200  years. 

Despite  this  financial  misunderstanding,  Louise  was 
sincerely  attached  to  her  son-in-law.  And  perhaps  what 
pleased  her  most  in  him  was  his  affection  for  his  wife. 
"  Your  husband  is  passionately  in  love  with  you,"  she 
writes  to  Charlotte.  But  Madame  de  La  Tremoille  did  not 
need  this  assurance,  for  at  that  time  Claude  was  writing 
her  amorous  letters,  one  of  which,  dated  Paris,  June  27th, 
1598,  has  been  preserved  in  the  La  Tremoille  archives.^ 

After  referring  to  the  petty  jealousies  and  quarrels  of 
the  court,  and  expressing  solicitude  for  his  wife's  health, 
Claude  writes  :  **  I  greatly  desire  to  see  you.  Besides 
the  affection  for  you  which  my  duty  enjoins  upon  me, 
believe  me,  my  dear  lady,  all  my  inclination  is  to  love  you 
passionately.  Never  doubt  it,  and  believe  that  I  adore 
you  as  much  as  it  is  possible  to  adore  anyone.  Often  do 
I  recall  my  delight  in  your  presence  and  my  joy  in  your 
young  beauty.^  My  imagination  leads  me  to  tell  you  of 
my  ardour.  When  we  are  parted  my  greatest  joy  is  to 
think  of  you.  Farewell,  my  heart,  a  thousand  and  a 
thousand  times  do  I  kiss  you  ;  and  rather  would  I  die 
than  that  the  affection  which  I  am  sure  you  bear  me 
should  diminish." 

On  December  22nd,  1598,  Charlotte  gave  birth  to  a 
son,^  whom  his  fond  grandmother  hears  is  "a  child 
so  handsome,  and  so  fat  that  he  might  well  be 
mistaken   for   a    Dutch  baby."  *      "  His    uncle,"  ^    she 

1  "  Le  Chartier  de  Thouars,"  108. 

2  Born  in  1580,  the  Duchess  was  eighteen  at  the  time  of  her  marriage, 
while  her  husband  was  thirty-two. 

8  Henry,  Due  de  La  Tremoille. 
^  "  Lettres,"  8. 

5  The  Due  de  Bouillon,  who  had  married  another  daughter  of  William 
the  Silent. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  113 

continues,  "  swears  that  he  is  like  his  own  little  daughter, 
but  that  is  pure  imagination,  since  he  has  never  seen 
him.'*  ^ 

Then  there  followed  in  succession  three  other  children  : 
in  December,  1599,  Charlotte,^  who  married  Lord  Strange, 
later  Earl  of  Derby ;  in  October,  1600,  Elizabeth,  who  died 
in  infancy ;  and  about  March,  1602,  Frederic,  who  took 
the  title  of  Comte  de  Laval,  and  was  killed  in  a  duel  at 
Venice  in  1642.  Claude's  domestic  bliss  was  but  short- 
lived. Despite  annual  visits  to  French  watering-places, 
his  old  enemy,  the  gout,  was  growing  more  and  more 
importunate.  The  lively  Louise  in  one  of  her  letters^ 
pictures  her  son-in-law  in  his  bath.  "  I  can  see,"  she 
writes,  "  his  fat  valet,  bearing  with  all  his  weight  on  the 
Duke's  shoulders  in  order  to  emerse  him  in  the  mud,  and 
all  the  while  pulling  wry  faces  as  he  sees  his  master's  skin 
defiled  with  mire,  but  mire  which  is  salutary,  since  it 
does  him  so  much  good." 

The  baths  failed  to  effect  a  cure,  and  in  October, 
1604,  while  his  daughter  Charlotte  lay  ill  of  the  small- 
pox, the  Duke  died  at  Thenars,  in  the  presence  of  his 
old  friend,  M.  du  Plessis-Mornay. 

The  latter  and  Agrippa  d'Aubigne  were  present,  on 
October  26th,  at  the  opening  of  La  Tremoille's  will. 
This  is  a  striking  document,*  expressing  the  Duke's  stern 
Huguenotterie  and  unrelenting  Calvinism.  After  making 
a  profession  of  faith  in  "  the  true  and  perfect  rehgion  of 
Jesus  Christ  as  professed  by  the  reformed  Churches  of 
France,"  Claude  proceeds  to  threaten  with  his  curse  any 
of  his  children  who,  forsaking  *'this  true  and  perfect" 

1  "Lettres."  ii. 

2  She  became  the  famous  Lady  of  Lathom,  of  whom  more  hereafter. 
^  Dated  October,  1600. 

<  See  "  Les  La  Tr^moilles  pendant  cinq  Si^cles,"  IV.,  34. 

C.R.  I 


114  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

religion  in  which  alone  lies  salvation,  shall  marry  outside 
the  reformed  Church. 

Claude's  terrible  injunction,  however,  proved  un- 
availing :  only  fourteen  years  later,  his  son  and  successor, 
Henry  de  La  Tremoille,  braving  his  father's  curse, 
having  been  instructed  by  Cardinal  Richeheu,  in  the 
camp  before  La  Rochelle,  abjured  his  father's  religion, 
and  returned  to  the  bosom  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

Henry's  abjuration  did  not  end  the  La  Tremoille 
connection  with  Protestantism.  His  wife,  Marie  de  la 
Tour,  remained  a  Calvinist,  and  his  son  and  daughter  both 
reverted  to  their  grandfather's  religion. 

Meanwhile,  Henry's  Aunt  Charlotte,  the  famous  Princesse 
de  Conde  and  her  son  had  some  years  before  Claude's 
death^  been  received  back  into  the  Roman  Communion. 

While  Claude  died  at  thirty-eight,  Charlotte  lived  to  be 
an  old  woman.  In  1604,  the  Princess's  adventurous 
career  had  still  many  years  to  run — years  in  which  her 
inflexible  will  and  imperious  temper  were  to  involve  her 
in  more  than  one  serious  dispute,  and  even  in  civil  war. 

In  1596,  she  with  her  son  had  taken  up  her  abode  at 
St.  Germain.  As  governor  to  the  young  Prince,  then 
the  recognised  heir-presumptive  to  the  throne  of  France, 
the  King  had  appointed  the  Marquis  de  Pisani.  For  this 
important  office  Henry  could  hardly  have  chosen  a  man 
more  eminent  in  council  and  in  war.  Besides  being  a  famous 
marshal,  Pisani  was  a  veteran  diplomatist.  But  to  us  his 
chief  interest  is  the  reflected  glory  which  he  gains  from  his 
daughter,  the  briUiant  Marquise  de  Rambouillet,  the  mis- 
tress of  what  is  commonly  held  to  be  the  first  French  Salon. ^ 

^  In  1596. 

2  In  reality,  other  Salons  less  famous  but  equally  distinguished, 
Louise  Labe's  at  Lyon  and  Madame  de  Morel's  at  Paris,  had  flourished 
in  the  sixteenth  century. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  115 

That  the  Marquis  de  Pisani  was  not  a  very  tactful  tutor 
appears  from  a  letter  he  wrote  to  King  Henry  soon  after 
his  appointment.  The  Princess  and  her  son  had  just 
arrived  at  St.  Germain.  "  Madame,  his  mother,  takes 
great  care  of  him,"  writes  Pisani.  But  he  goes  on  to 
complain  that  the  Prince  has  no  establishment  of  his  own, 
not  even  a  piece  of  furniture,  that  he  sleeps  in  his  mother's 
room,  and  that  his  Governor  can  never  see  him  in  the 
morning  and  evening  to  correct  ''sundry  little  faults 
which  time  will  increase,  if  they  be  not  checked  early."  ^ 

This  attempt  to  thrust  himself  in  between  mother  and 
child  caused  the  Princess  to  dislike  Pisani ;  and  from  first 
to  last  they  were  sworn  foes,  for  ever  disputing  as  to  the 
method  of  their  charge's  upbringing.  "It  is  pitiable  to 
see  how  this  little  Prince  is  being  treated,"  wrote  his 
Governor.^ 

Pisani's  method  was  probably  the  best ;  at  any  rate 
the  following  anecdote  related  by  Tallemant  des  Reaux 
makes  the  tutor's  regime  appear  to  have  been  bottomed 
in  sound  sense.  Riding  along  the  road  one  day  on  their 
way  to  the  hunt,  the  Marquis  and  his  pupil  passed  a 
peasant,  who  in  humble  loyalty  prostrated  himself  at 
his  prince's  feet.  But  the  young  Conde  went  on  his  way, 
paying  no  heed  to  the  man's  salutations,  not  even  by 
so  much  as  a  nod.  "  Monsieur,"  remonstrated  his 
Governor,  "  there  may  be  no  one  lower  than  that  man, 
as  there  is  no  one  higher  than  you  ;  but  if  he  and  his 
equals  did  not  cultivate  the  land,  you  and  your  equals 
would  be  in  danger  of  dying  from  starvation."  ^ 

Perhaps  the  imputation  of  insensibility  to  feminine 
charms  under  which  Conde  was  to  labour  in  after  years 

Barth^l^my,  "  La  Princesse  de  Conde,"  205. 
2  Ihid.,  93. 
'  Tallemant  des  R6aux,  "  M^moires,"  ed.  1834,  I.  32. 

I  Z 


ii6  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

arose  from  the  strictness  of  his  upbringing  ;  for  we  are 
told  that  when  he  and  the  future  Queen  of  Rambouillet 
were  children  together,  in  one  of  their  games,  he  took 
the  little  girl's  head  in  his  hands  and  kissed  her,  an 
indiscretion  for  which,  so  runs  the  tale,  he  was  punished 
so  severely  that  he  ever  afterwards  disliked  women. ^ 

The  perpetual  bickerings  between  Charlotte  and  her 
son's  Governor  only  came  to  an  end  when,  in  1599, 
Pisani  died,  and  Henry  IV.  appointed  to  succeed  him 
a  man  after  the  Princess's  own  heart,  the  Comte  de  Bellin, 
a  former  general  of  the  League.^ 

But  by  that  time  the  young  Conde's  importance  was 
beginning  to  dwindle,  for  Henry  IV.,  having  obtained  a 
divorce  from  his  first  wife.  Marguerite  de  Valois,  had 
married  Marie  de  Medicis,  who  was  about  to  bear  him  an 
heir.  **  When  I  wished  to  make  my  nephew  a  King,  I 
gave  him  the  Marquis  of  Pisani,"  said  Henry,  "  when  I 
wished  to  make  him  a  subject  I  gave  him  the  Comte  de 
Bellin."  ^ 

Pisani  had  died  at  the  Princess's  residence  of  St. 
Maur-les-Fosses,  an  ancient  Abbey,  not  far  from  Paris, 
once  belonging  to  Catherine  de  Medicis,  and  after  her 
death  purchased  by  Charlotte's  mother.  The  Abbey, 
with  the  rest  of  Jeanne  de  Montmorency's  estate,  had  on 
her  death,  in  1596,  passed  into  her  daughter's  possession  ; 
and  La  Princesse  de  Conde  was  now  a  rich  woman. 
Her  wealth,  however,  did  not  hinder  her  from  waging  a 
warfare  of  words  with  that  skilful  financier.  Sully,  on 
the  questions  of  the  amount  of  her  son's  pension  and  the 
sum  to  be  expended  on  the  maintenance  of  his  household. 

Having  withdrawn  to  St.   Maur  in  order  to  escape 

1  Tallemant  des  R6aux,  op.  cit.  I.,  32. 

2  Ibid.,  32. 
s  Ihid.,  32. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  117 

from  an  epidemic  which  was  ravaging  St.  Germain, 
the  Princess  continued  to  reside  at  the  Abbey  until  the 
close  of  Henry's  reign ;  for  the  King,  persisting  in  his 
dislike  of  his  cousin's  widow,  always  met  with  coldness 
her  various  attempts  to  obtain  a  position  at  court. 

Only  once  during  the  ten  years  which  preceded  Henry's 
assassination  ^  do  we  find  her  appearing  at  Paris.  That 
was  in  March,  1609,  on  the  occasion  of  her  son's  marriage 
with  the  beautiful  Charlotte  de  Montmorency.^  Then 
the  Princess  de  Conde  was  present  with  all  the  court 
at  the  formal  betrothal  in  the  Louvre  gallery  at 
Chantilly. 

With  Mdlle.  de  Montmorency,  who  was  considered 
by  all  the  court  gallants  to  be  perfect  in  beauty  and  in 
grace,  the  King  was  passionately  in  love.  And  it  was  in 
the  hope  of  making  her  his  mistress  that  Henry  had 
chosen  for  her  husband  the  cold-blooded  Conde,  the  reputed 
misogynist  of  the  court.  But  the  King  was  mistaken  in 
his  cousin  ;  Conde  did  not  prove  the  accommodating 
husband  he  had  hoped  ;  for,  suspecting  the  royal  designs, 
he  obtained  permission  to  take  his  wife  to  Moret,  on  the 
edge  of  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau,  and  thence,  putting 
her  on  a  pilHon  behind  one  of  his  valets,  he  carried  her 
off  in  haste  to  the  Low  Countries. 

The  news  of  his  lady's  departure  was  brought  to  the 
King  at  Paris  as  he  sat  at  cards  with  some  nobles  of  the 
court.  "  My  friend,  I  am  lost,"  whispered  the  King  to 
his  partner,  "  take  care  of  my  money  and  keep  the  game 
going  while  I  enquire  into  this  matter."^    Having  learned 

1  May,  1610. 

2  Daughter  of  the  Constable,  Henry  de  Montmorency,  known  earlier 
as  Mar^chal  de  Damville,  son  of  the  famous  Anne  de  Montmorency. 

8  "  M^moires,"    Bassompierre,   ed.     Mich,   et  Poujoulat,    S6rie   II., 
Vol.  VI.  67. 


ii8  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

that  the  tidings  were  only  too  true,  Henry  flew  into  a 
violent  passion.  Summoning  his  ministers,  he  inquired 
first  from  one,  then  from  the  other,  what  was  to  be  done, 
while  the  cautious  Sully  nearly  drove  his  master  to  despera- 
tion by  counselling  him  to  do  nothing.  Far  from  following 
Sully's  advice,  Henry,  in  the  hottest  haste,  despatched  a 
gentleman  of  the  court  to  pursue  the  fugitives  and,  if 
possible,  persuade  them  to  return ;  but,  in  the  event  of 
his  failure,  the  messenger  was  instructed  to  warn  the 
powers  of  the  Low  Countries  that  they  would  incur  the 
enmity  of  the  King  of  France  if  they  granted  harbourage 
to  the  runaway  couple. 

In  both  missions  Henry's  messenger  failed,  for  Conde 
and  his  bride  crossed  the  frontier  and  found  refuge  at 
Brussels.  There  the  lady  stayed  until  the  King's  death. 
Conde,  as  soon  as  his  wife  was  out  of  the  King's  way, 
ceased  to  take  any  interest  in  her  and,  escaping  in  disguise, 
went  off  to  Italy.  He  was  at  Milan  when  the  news  of 
Henry's  assassination  reached  him  and  brought  him 
back  to  Paris. 

Marie  de  Medicis,  who  had  seized  the  Regency  on  her 
husband's  death,  dreaded  Conde's  return,  fearing  that, 
as  a  Prince  of  the  Blood,  he  might  claim  the  right  to  rule 
during  the  King's  minority.  But,  although  he  entered 
the  capital  in  a  somewhat  redoubtable  manner,  at  the 
head  of  1,500  gentlemen,  Conde  proved  ready  to  sell  his 
birthright  for  a  pension  of  50,000  crowns  and  the  Hotel 
de  Gondi.^  Afterwards,  he  installed  his  mother  in 
a  little  hotel  in  the  Rue  de  Conde  close  by.  Then,  in 
these  two  palaces,  the  Prince  and  Princess  Dowager 
proceeded  to  hold  a  veritable  court,  and  to  gather  round 

^  Later  known  as  the  H6tel  de  Conde.  Pulled  down  in  the 
eighteenth  century ;  it  occupied  almost  exactly  the  site  of  the 
modern   Theatre   de  I'Odeon. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  119 

them  a  party  of  opposition  to  the  government  of  the 
Queen  Regent  and  of  her  favourite,  Concini,  best  known 
as  the  Marechal  d'Ancre. 

The  chief  point  of  their  attack  was  the  government's 
foreign  poHcy,  the  Franco-Spanish  aUiance,  which  was  to 
be  cemented  by  a  double  marriage,  that  of  Louis  XI I L 
with   Anne   of   Austria,    PhiHp    III.'s   eldest    daughter, 
and  of  Elizabeth  of  France  with  the  Prince  of  the  Asturias. 
Twice,  in  1614  and  1615,  did  Conde  and  his  associates 
have  recourse  to  arms.     Although  they  failed  to  prevent 
the  Spanish  marriages — that  of   Louis  XIII.  was  cele- 
brated in  the    Cathedral    of    Bordeaux    in   November, 
1615 — they  succeeded   in    forcing    the    government    to 
summon  the  States  General — for   the  last    time    before 
the  Revolution.     They  succeeded  also  in  extracting  from 
the  crown  vast  sums  of  money,  which  were  paid  into  the 
Prince's  exchequer.     Indeed,  from  the  two  agreements 
of  Sainte  Menehould   and  Loudon,   Conde  acquired  so 
much  power  and  importance,  which  he  used  with  so  much 
insolence,  that  he  seemed  to  eclipse  the  authority  of  the 
Queen  :    the  finances  were  abandoned  to  his  direction  ; 
no  ordinance  was  issued  without  his  signature  ;    and, 
while  the  Louvre  was  deserted,  to  Conde's  hotel  such 
crowds  resorted  that  it  was  difficult  to  approach  the  gates. 
So  powerful  a  rival  Marie  de  Medicis  could  not  possibly 
tolerate.     While  apparently  all  smiles  and  graces  to  the 
Prince,  she  was  in  reality  planning  his  arrest.     This  took 
place  one  morning,  September  ist,  1616,  in  the  King's 
chamber  in  the  palace  of  the  Louvre.^ 

Very  soon  afterwards  the  Princess  Dowager,  in  her  hotel, 
received  the  news  that  her  son  had  been  assassinated. 

1  It  is  graphically  related  in  "  L'Histoire  des  Princes  de  Conde,"  by 
the  Due  d'Aumale  (1886),  III.  85—87. 


120  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Charlotte  was  by  that  time  a  middle-aged  woman  of 
forty-eight,  but  the  courage  and  decision  of  early  years 
now  returned  to  her.  This  was  the  kind  of  occasion 
when  she  appeared  to  greatest  advantage.  Immediately 
she  ordered  her  coach,  and,  accompanied  by  an  imposing 
escort  on  horseback,  drove  through  the  streets  of  the 
capital  endeavouring  to  raise  Paris  on  her  son's  behalf. 
Leaning  out  of  the  carriage  window,  her  face  bathed  in 
tears,  she  cried  :  ''To  arms,  gentlemen  of  Paris  !  The 
Marechal  d' Ancre  has  slain  Monsieur  le  Prince  !  To  arms, 
all  good  Frenchmen  !  "  And  her  escort  re-echoed  the 
cry. 

But  this  dramatic  scene  availed  nothing.  While  a  few 
shops  were  shut  for  fear  of  disturbance,  the  phlegmatic 
Parisians  looked  on,  and  laughed  when  one  feeble  old 
woman  stretched  a  chain  across  the  street. 

Having  driven  down  to  the  Pont  de  Notre  Dame, 
Charlotte,  convinced  of  the  failure  of  her  attempted  coup 
d'etat,  ordered  her  coachman  to  turn  round,  and  with  her 
escort  went  back  to  her  hotel,  where  she  found  some 
thirty  of  her  friends  assembled.  Having  learnt  from  them 
that,  after  all,  her  son  was  alive  although  a  prisoner,  she 
adopted  her  friends'  advice  to  renounce  all  attempt  to 
raise  a  rebellion.^ 

This,  as  far  as  we  know,  was  the  Princess's  last  sensa- 
tional appearance  in  public.  During  her  son's  imprison- 
ment, first  in  the  Bastille,  then  at  Vincennes,  she  made 
every  effort  for  his  deliverance,  and  vainly  solicited 
the  interference  of  James  I.  of  England  on  his  behalf. 
But  Conde  was  not  released  until  1619.  Some  time  before, 
his  wife  had  joined  him  at  Vincennes,  where  in  this  year 

1  The  only  disorder  which  actually  took  place  was  the  sacking  of  the 
hdtels  of  Concini  and  of  his  secretary  by  the  mob,  under  the  leadership 
of  one  Picard,  a  shoemaker. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  I21 

she  gave  birth  to  a  daughter,  who  was  to  become  the 
famous  Duchesse  de  Longueville/ 

Of  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille's  last  years  there  is  little 
to  relate.  Like  that  other  turbulent  Frenchwoman, 
Georges  Sand,  after  a  tempestuous  youth  and  maturity, 
the  Princess  enjoyed  a  peaceful  old  age.  She  became 
reconciled  to  her  sister-in-law,  the  Dowager  Duchess  of 
Thouars,  with  whose  eldest  son  Henry,  Due  de  Thouars, 
she  had  been  for  some  years  corresponding  on  friendly 
terms.  She  lived  to  see  the  head  of  the  La  Tremoille 
house  return  to  the  Catholic  faith,  and  she  died  in  the 
following  year,  on  August  29th,  1629,  in  her  hotel  at 
Paris. 

Her  body  was  buried  in  the  Convent  of  the  Ave  Maria, 
where  an  elaborate  monument  was  erected  to  her  memory.^ 
Her  heart  was  placed  in  the  burial-place  of  the  Condes  at 
Valery,  near  Montereau. 

The  story  of  her  son's  life  after  her  death  belongs  to 
the  history  of  the  House  of  Conde.  Here  it  may  suffice 
to  say  that  he  became  the  bitter  enemy  of  the  Huguenots, 
fighting  against  them  in  the  expedition  to  the  He  de  Re, 
and  retiring  from  the  army  rather  than  make  peace  with 
those  into  whose  church  he  had  been  born.  Ever  careful 
to  secure  his  own  personal  advancement,  he  married  his 
son,  then  the  Due  d'Enghien,  to  the  niece  of  Cardinal 
Richelieu.  Surviving  until  1646,  he  lived  to  see  the 
dawn  of  that  son's  military  glory. 

^  Two  years  later  was  born  Condi's  son,  Louis,  who  was  to  be  known 
as  "  le  Grand  Conde." 
2  See  illustration. 


12^        FROM  THE  CRUSADES 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   LADY   OF  LATHOM.      1559 — 1664 

Now  we  come  to  a  La  Tremoille  who  is  no  stranger 
to  English  readers.  For  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille, 
Duke  Claude's  daughter,  stands  immortalised  in  one  of  the 
most  popular  of  our  novels,  in  "  Peveril  of  the  Peak." 
Students  of  history  know  her  as  the  stern  Countess  of 
Derby  who  gallantly  defended  Lathom  House  against 
the  Parliamentarians.  Readers  of  fiction  remember  her 
chiefly  as  the  imperious  lady  in  Scott's  novel,  who, 
advancing  suddenly  from  behind  the  arras  in  the  gilded 
chamber  of  Martindale  Castle,  startled  little  Peveril  and 
the  baby  Alice  at  their  play. 

While  the  Lady  of  Lathom's  gifted  biographer,^  Madame 
de  Witt,  accused  Scott  of  travestying  the  Countess,  and  of 
degrading  one  of  the  noblest  of  women  into  a  mere  heroine 
of  melodrama,  others  may  marvel  at  the  accuracy  with 
which  the  novelist  has  caught  and  rendered  the  spirit  of 
Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille.  Scott  may  have  availed 
himself  of  the  novelist's  license  to  twist  and  distort  facts. 
Indeed,  in  his  introduction  to  "  Peveril  of  the  Peak," 
he  admits  that  he  has  dared  to  transform  into  a  Catholic 
so  stalwart  a  Protestant  as  Duke  Claude's  daughter. 
He  might  also  have  admitted  that  at  her  door  instead  of 
at  her  son's,  he  has  laid  the  guilt,  if  guilt  it  were,  of  the 

1  The  two  best  biographies  of  the  Lady  of  Lathom  are  one  by  Madame 
de  Witt  (translated  into  English,  1869),  and  another  bv  L6on  Marlet 
(1895). 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  1^3 

traitor  Christian's  summary  execution.  But  for  these 
violations  of  the  letter  of  history  his  adherence  to  its 
spirit  amply  atones  ;  and  no  one  has  ever  passed  a  truer 
verdict  upon  Charlotte's  character  than  Sir  Walter's 
description  of  the  famous  Countess  as  "  a  man  when  so 
many  men  proved  women." 

Charlotte  was  every  inch  a  heroine  and  every  inch  the 
granddaughter  of  WiUiam  the  Silent.  Not  only  from  her 
illustrious  lineage,  however,  but  also  from  her  strenuous 
upbringing,  she  derived  that  heroism  with  which  she 
ever  confronted  the  vicissitudes  of  her  tempestuous  life. 

She  was,  as  we  have  said,  a  mere  child  when  her  father 
died.  And  it  was  to  two  stern  Protestant  women,  her 
step -grandmother,  Louise  de  Coligny,  the  Admiral's 
daughter,  and  her  mother,  Charlotte  Brabantine,  the 
daughter  of  William  the  Silent,  that  fell  the  care  of  her 
nurture  and  education.  The  chief  object  of  these 
Calvinist  dames  seems  to  have  been  to  tame  their 
young  charge's  turbulence  and  to  break  her  will.  This 
they  never  completely  achieved.  They  did  succeed, 
however,  in  refining  Charlotte's  passionate  turbulence 
into  that  calm  courage  and  her  obstinate  self-will  into 
that  persistent  tenacity  which  were  eventually  to  render 
her  the  brave  defendress  of  her  husband's  house  and  lands. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  all  seventeenth  century 
children,  but  especially  those  of  Puritan  parents,  were 
more  strictly  brought  up  than  are  the  children  of  to-day. 
It  was,  therefore,  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the 
age  that  Charlotte's  childhood  should  have  been  a  series 
of  chastisements.  In  mortal  terror  of  these  punishments 
we  find  the  child  in  her  own  early  letters,  and  in  those  of 
her  mother  and  grandmother,  constantly  protesting  her 
resolution  "  to  be  good."     But  that  this  resolve  frequently 


124  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

shared  the  proverbial  fate  of  such  determinations  may  be 
gathered  from  the  numerous  references  in  her  relatives' 
letters  to  a  generous  administration  of  the  rod. 

"  I  have  her  well  flogged  whenever  she  deserves  it," 
wrote  her  grandmother  at  the  Hague,  where  Charlotte 
was  then  staying  ;  and  again,  "  her  governess  does  not 
spare  the  cane."  Even  the  child's  absent  mother  from 
distant  Thouars  collaborated  in  her  little  girl's  punishment, 
and  when  she  heard  that  Charlotte  had  been  naughty 
refused  to  send  her  a  New  Year's  gift. 

Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille's  weaknesses  were  those  of  most 
little  girls  of  her  age  :  a  love  of  play,  a  lack  of  application 
and  a  fondness  for  dress.  But  the  Calvinist  minds 
of  her  guardians  tortured  these  healthy  symptoms 
into  signs  of  original  sin,  which,  if  not  nipped 
in  the  bud,  would  bloom  later  into  vices  hideous  and 

deadly.     "  To-day,    Sunday "    triumphantly    writes 

Charlotte's  grandmother,  "  she  is  crying  because  she 
is  not  allowed  to  wear  her  best  frock." 

Yet  even  Coligny's  daughter  permitted  some  worldly 
amusements.  Charlotte  went  to  parties.  But  the  heart 
of  her  absent  mother  was  filled  with  misgiving  when  she 
heard  that  her  little  daughter  had  been  the  belle  of  a 
babies'  ball.  Such  vanities  could  only  have  one  result, 
and  surely  enough,  so  she  gathered  from  the  next  letter, 
that  result  followed.  Charlotte  was  said  to  be  showing 
a  dangerous  fondness  for  the  opposite  sex,  for  she  had  been 
found  talking  privily  to  her  grandmother's  nephew,  a 
youth  in  his  teens,  one  of  the  Chatillons  who  was  staying 
at  the  Hague. 

In  those  days  the  young  ladies  of  the  Dutch  capital 
were  reputed  fast,  and  the  influence  of  these  flighty 
damsels    Charlotte's   mother   feared   was   beginning   to 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  125 

bear  poisonous  fruit  in  her  little  girl  of  ten.  So  Mdlle. 
de  La  Tremoille  was  recalled  from  the  snares  of  the  Hague 
to  the  cloistered  retreat  of  her  Poitevin  home.  In  vain 
did  Louise  and  the  castigating  governess  write  protesting 
that  Charlotte's  flirtation  with  Chatillon  was  but  an 
exception,  and  that  usually  she  regarded  her  boy  friends 
with  the  proudest  disdain.  WilHam  the  Silent's  daughter 
was  not  to  be  convinced,  and  Charlotte  came  home. 

Very  absurd  to  us  to-day  seems  all  this  fuss  over  a 
boy  and  girl's  harmless  conversation.  But  we  must 
remember  that  in  the  seventeenth  century  maidens  grew 
up  quickly,  that  a  girl  of  ten  was  then  regarded  as  a 
young  miss  of  seventeen  would  be  now,  and  that  in  ques- 
tions of  morals  Calvinists  have  always  tended  to  make 
mountains  out  of  mole-hills. 

At  Thouars,  Charlotte  had  no  playmates  of  either  sex 
to  join  her  in  those  games  of  which  she  was  reputed  so 
inordinately  fond.  For  her  only  sister  Elizabeth  had 
died  of  that  same  epidemic  of  small-pox  which,  at  the 
time  of  her  father's  death,  had  smitten  Charlotte.  Her 
eldest  brother,  Henry,  gloomy  and  taciturn,  was  no 
cheerful  companion  when  at  home,  and  frequently  he 
was  absent  on  those  distant  travels  which  were  then  held 
necessary  for  the  education  of  a  complete  gentleman. 

With  what  meticulous  care  Madame  de  La  Tremoille 
educated  her  children  may  be  seen  in  the  list  of  instruc- 
tions^ with  which  she  equipped  her  son,  when,  in  December, 
1613,^  the  young  Duke,  then  a  boy  of  fifteen,  set  out  for 
Holland,  there  to  visit  his  uncle,  the  Stadtholder,  Prince 
Maurice  of  Nassau.  In  these  instructions  we  find  the 
length  of  the  traveller's  absence,  not  more  than  four  or 

1  "  Chartier  de  Thouars."  124 — 125. 

'  Two  years  later  Henry  visited  Switzerland  and  Italy. 


126  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

five  weeks,  carefully  specified,  a  list  of  the  towns  he  is 
to  visit — on  no  account  must  he  miss  Delft  and  Leyden — 
admonitions  as  to  his  expenditure — at  the  Hague  he 
may  buy  himself  a  complete  outfit,  but  nothing  must 
be  purchased  save  by  the  advice  of  those  who  accompany 
him — and  rules  for  his  daily  conduct — an  hour  every 
afternoon  must  be  set  aside  for  some  profitable  exercise, 
all  that  is  remarkable  in  the  places  visited  must  be 
observed  and  written  down,  but  above  all  things,  the 
traveller  must  not  forget  to  pray  every  night  and  morning, 
"  remembering  that  without  God  he  can  do  nothing." 

Charlotte's  youngest  brother,  Frederic,  Comte  de  Laval, 
was  her  favourite.  To  him  she  was  devotedly  attached, 
and  over  his  babyhood  she  watched  with  all  the  passionate 
tenderness  of  a  loving  little  mother.  Frederic's  was  a 
cheerful  spirit ;  but,  alas  !  his  natural  gaiety,  reacting 
against  Calvinist  strictness,  was  to  lead  him  into  wild  and 
yet  wilder  courses,  until  finally  he  perished  in  a  duel  at 
Venice.  Not  long  after  her  return  from  the  Hague, 
however,  Charlotte  and  Frederic  were  parted,  for  the 
young  Comte  de  Laval  was  sent  away  from  home  to 
pursue  his  studies  at  the  University  of  Sedan. 

Meanwhile,  Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille's  own  edu- 
cation was  progressing  apace,  and  she  could  write  to  her 
mother  :  "  Thank  God,  you  will  find  me  quite  learned. 
I  know  seventeen  Psalms,  all  the  quatrains  of  Pibrac,  all 
the  huitains  of  Zamariel,  and  above  all,  I  can  talk  Latin. ^ 
But  these  serious  studies,  while  developing  a  strenuous- 
ness  of  character  which  was  to  prove  valuable  in  after 


1  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille's  letters  quoted  in  this  chapter  may  be 
found  in  the  two  biographies  of  the  Lady  of  Lathom  already  referred  to. 
Both  Madame  de  Witt  and  Leon  Marie t  claim  to  have  copied  the  letters 
direct  from  the  original  MSS.,  which  are  in  the  possession  of  the  Duke 
de  La  Tr^moille. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  127 

years,  can  hardly  have  enlivened  the  little  girl's  solitude. 
Among  her  seventeen  Psalms  would  doubtless  be  those 
two  Huguenot  favourites,  the  battle  psalm  as  it  was  called : 
"  Let  God  arise,  let  His  enemies  be  scattered  ;  let  them 
also  that  hate  Him  flee  before  Him,"  and  that  eloquent 
lamentation,  "  My  tears  have  been  my  meat  day  and 
night  .  .  .  O  my  God,  my  soul  is  cast  down  within  me 
...  all  Thy  waves  and  Thy  billows  are  gone  over  me." 
Natural  enough  may  these  curses  and  wailings  sound  upon 
the  lips  of  a  mature  Calvinist,  but  in  the  mouth  of  a 
mere  babe  they  strike  one  as  somewhat  inappropriate. 

No  more  likely  to  foster  the  blithe  spirit  one  likes  to 
associate  with  childhood  were  the  verses  of  the  Calvinist 
agitator,  Zamariel  or  Chandieu,  on  the  vanity  of  all  things 
human,  or  those  moral  quatrains  of  Pibrac,  which  for 
seven  generations  boys  and  girls  were  required  to  commit 
to  memory.  Two  lines  of  these  quatrains  :  "  Love  the 
state  as  thou  findest  it ;  be  it  royal  then  love  royalty,"  ^ 
must  have  stamped  themselves  upon  Charlotte's  memory, 
and  from  them  she  must  have  derived  inspiration  for  her 
whole  career ;  indeed,  she  might  have  chosen  them  as  her 
motto. 

Already  a  regime  of  chastening  and  chastising  was 
casting  a  gloom  over  Charlotte's  natural  cheerfulness.  She 
was  rapidly  losing  her  love  of  play,  and  at  fifteen  we 
find  her  wondering  whether  a  ball  were  really  worth  the 
trouble.  Yet  some  sparks  of  fun  still  remained  to  her, 
and  she  could  laugh  at  the  exaggerated  seriousness 
of  a  Protestant  pastor  denouncing  certain  wedding 
festivities   she   had    attended.     "  How   he   did   scold," 

^  Ayme  I'estat  tel  que  tu  le  vols  estre  : 
S'il  est  royal,  ayme  la  Royaute. 

Quoted  by  Montaigne,  "  Essais,"  Bk.  III.  :   "  De  la  Vanit6." 


128  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

wrote  the  maiden ;  "  why,  he  nearly  mentioned  us  all  by 
name,  and  yet  I  assure  you  we  had  done  nothing  to 
deserve  such  reproaches." 

In  1619  life  grew  less  solitary  for  Charlotte,  for  in  that 
year  her  brother  Henry  brought  home  to  Thouars  his 
young  bride  and  cousin,  Marie  de  La  Tour  d'Auvergne, 
daughter  of  the  Due  de  Bouillon.  Plain,  grasping,  and, 
above  all,  ambitious,  Marie  cannot  have  been  a  very 
attractive  companion ;  yet  some  good  qualities  must  have 
been  hers,  for  she  and  Charlotte  were  speedily  united  in 
a  friendship  which  endured  until  Charlotte's  death.  In- 
deed, it  is  from  the  correspondence  of  the  sisters-in-law, 
preserved  in  the  archives  of  Thouars,  that  we  derive  much 
of  our  information  concerning  our  heroine's  career. 

Visits  to  Paris,  too,  in  company  with  her  mother,  who 
was  conducting  a  law-suit  there,  occasionally  broke  the 
routine  of  life  at  Thouars.  And,  now  that  Charlotte  was 
growing  up,  came  the  diversion  of  various  proposals  of 
marriage,  for  Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille,  one  of  the  wealthiest 
heiresses  in  Europe,  was  naturally  much  sought  after. 

Not  among  the  Italianate  nobles  of  Marie  de  Medicis' 
dissolute  court  was  the  Duchess  likely  to  find  a 
suitable  husband  for  her  daughter.  Moreover,  according 
to  her  father's  will,  Charlotte's  mate  must  perforce  be  a 
Protestant.  But  French  Protestants  in  those  days  were 
rapidly  dwindling  in  power,  wealth  and  importance. 
Charlotte's  choice,  therefore,  was  very  limited  ;  and  so  it 
fell  out  that  at  the  age  of  twenty-six  she  was  still  to 
marry. 

It  was  doubtless  with  the  object  of  marrying  her 
daughter  that  in  1626  Madame  de  La  Tremoille  took  her 
to  Holland.  At  the  Hague,  Charlotte  revisited  the  scene 
of  her  infantile  gaieties,  and  wrote  to  her  sister-in-law  at 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  I2g 

Thouars  a  somewhat  doleful  letter,  in  which,  after 
mechanically  describing  the  magnificent  feting  of  the 
Persian  Ambassador,  she  moaned  over  "  the  horrible 
laws  "  of  the  Persians,  especially  with  regard  to  women, 
over  the  lack  of  religious  zeal  in  Flanders,  and  finally  over 
the  perplexities  of  life  in  general.  "  More  and  more  is  it 
borne  in  upon  me,*'  she  groaned,  "  how  difficult  a  place 
the  world  is  to  live  in.  May  God  guide  us,  and 
may  He  grant  unto  you,  my  heart,  a  full  measure  of 
contentment." 

The  hospitable  Dutch  court  was  then  sheltering  the 
exiled  King  and  Queen  of  Bohemia,  Frederic,  Elector 
Palatine  of  the  Rhine,  and  his  fascinating  wife,  Charles  I.'s 
sister,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  known  in  history  as  "  the  Queen 
of  Hearts."  ^  Elizabeth's  husband  was  the  Duchess's 
nephew,  and  the  La  Tremoilles  soon  after  their  arrival 
joined  that  distinguished  circle  gathered  round  the 
sovereigns  in  exile.  To  the  match-making  Queen  it  was 
a  great  advantage  to  have  the  hand  of  a  wealthy  heiress 
to  dispose  of,  and  from  among  the  young  English  noblemen 
who  had  flocked  to  the  Hague  to  do  homage  to  Elizabeth's 
charms,  she  was  not  long  in  selecting  a  husband  for 
Charlotte.  Possibly  among  "  the  perplexities  of  life  " 
which  then  afflicted  Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille  were  the 
rival  appeals  to  her  affections  of  the  addresses  of  James 
Stanley,  Lord  Strange,  and  her  love  for  her  motherland. 

As  for  Madame  de  La  Tremoille,  she  had  no  doubt 
whatever  as  to  the  reception  to  be  given  to  Lord  Strange's 
wooing  of  her  daughter.  For  James  Stanley,  besides 
being  a  staunch  Protestant,  was  son  and  heir  to  the  Earl 
of  Derby,  whose  vast  estates  in  Lancashire  and  Cheshire, 
and  whose  so-called  sovereignity  of  the  Isle  of  Man, 

1  See  Sir  Henry  Wotton's  verses  to  Elizabeth  of  Bohemia. 
C.R.  K 


130  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

rendered  him  one  of  the  greatest  and  wealthiest  of 
English  nobles.  The  Stanleys,  moreover,  on  the  female 
side,  were  of  royal  blood,  being  descended  from  Mary 
Tudor,  daughter  of  King  Henry  VII. ^ 

The  fact  that  Lord  Strange  was  two  years  Charlotte's 
junior  did  not  seem  to  the  Duchess  any  serious  objection, 
and  she  gladly  gave  her  consent  to  the  wedding,  which 
was  celebrated  at  the  Hague  in  July.  Soon  afterwards 
the  bride  and  bridegroom,  accompanied  by  the  bride's 
mother,  set  out  for  England. 

They  reached  London  in  the  midst  of  a  court  crisis.  In 
the  previous  summer  Charles  I.  had  wedded  his  French 
bride,  Henrietta  Maria,  the  daughter  of  King  Henry  IV. 
The  first  years  of  their  married  life  had  been  one  long 
series  of  disputes,  which  the  King  had  just  now  brought 
to  a  climax  by  his  peremptory  dismissal  of  the  Queen's 
French  attendants,  whom  he  had  ordered  to  pack  up  and 
depart  at  a  few  days'  notice.  This  summary  measure, 
while  delighting  Londoners  and  members  of  Parliament, 
with  whom  the  French  papists  were  most  unpopular, 
threw  Henrietta  Maria  into  such  a  fury  that  she  and  her 
husband  were  barely  on  speaking  terms. 

1  The  illustrious  descent  of  Charlotte  and  her  husband  may  be  seen 
from  the  following  genealogical  table,  printed  in  Horace  Walpole's 
■'  Letters,"  Cunningham  edition,  VI.  372,  note: — 

Henry  VII. 

Charles  Brandon,  Duke  of 
SuUolk  =  Mary  Tudor. 

L.  de  Bourbon,      William,      Anne  de  Montmorency      W.  Cecil,       Eleanor  =  Clifford, 
D.   de  Mont-         Pr.  of         (Constable  of  France)  =  Lord  Earl  of  Cumber- 

pensier.  Orange.        Madeleine  de  Savoie.        Burleigh.  land. 

Marie  =  William  the       Jeanne  =  Louis,  ist  D.      Anne  =  Vere,     Margaret  =  Earl  of 
I      Silent.  de  La  Tr6moille.  E.  of  Oxford.  Derby. 

I  III 

Charlotte  Brabantine  de  Nassau  =  Claude,  and  Elizabeth  =  William,-  6th  Earl 

D.  de  La  Tr6moille.  of  Derby. 

Charlotte  de  La  Ti6moille  =  James,  7th  Earl  of  Derby. 


CHARLOTTE    DE    LA    TREMOILLE,  COUNTESS    OE    DEKHV 
From  a  oictiire  by  Vandyke 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  131 

Madame  de  La  Tremoille  and  her  daughter,  arriving 
only  a  few  days  after  the  departure  of  the  French  retinue, 
came  in  the  very  nick  of  time  ;  for  the  French  nationaUty 
and  the  Protestant  faith  of  Lady  Strange  and  her  mother 
at  once  rendered  them  popular  with  both  sides  in  the 
dispute — ^with  the  homesick  Queen,  eager  to  welcome  her 
fellow-countrywomen,  and  with  King  and  Parliament 
ready  to  trust  these  new  foreigners  because  of  their 
Protestant  religion. 

Charles,  therefore,  encouraged  the  new  arrivals  to  stay 
at  court,  granting  them  those  apartments  in  St.  James's 
Palace  which  had  recently  been  vacated  by  the  Queen's 
French  household.  But  it  must  have  been  some  time 
before  Lord  and  Lady  Strange  and  the  Duchess  Dowager 
could  actually  take  up  their  abode  in  these  quarters,  on 
account  of  their  previous  occupants'  lack  of  cleanliness, 
which,  we  are  told,  had  rendered  them  totally  uninhabit- 
able. Madame  de  La  Tremoille  was  now  appointed  Lady 
of  the  Queen's  Bedchamber,  a  position  in  which,  after 
her  return  to  France  in  October,  1626,  she  was  suc- 
ceeded by  her  daughter. 

For  some  months  Lady  Strange  lived  in  London,  and 
apparently  it  was  not  until  the  autumn  of  1627,  when  her 
husband  was  associated  with  his  father,  the  Earl  of 
Derby,  in  the  lieutenancy  of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire, 
that  Lord  Strange  took  his  bride  to  her  northern  home 
and  introduced  her  to  her  father-in-law,  who  was  then 
living  at  Chester. 

With  gracious  Enghsh  kindness  and  old-world  courtesy 
the  Earl  received  his  daughter-in-law,  speaking  to  her  in 
French,  calling  her  "  Lady  "  and  "  mistress  of  the  house," 
a  position  he  said  he  wished  no  other  woman  to  hold. 
With  her  princely  residence  of  Lathom  House    Lady 

K  2 


132  FROM  THE   CRUSADES 

Strange  was  delighted,  as  well  she  might  be,  for  the 
mansion  was  one  of  the  finest  in  England.  Indeed,  at  that 
time  everything  smiled  upon  her,  and  through  her 
husband's  devotion  the  world  seemed  to  have  grown  "  a 
less  difficult  place  to  live  in."  "He  shows  me  the  utmost 
affection,  and  God  gives  us  grace  to  live  in  much  happiness 
and  peace  of  mind,"  she  wrote.  Within  a  year  of  their 
marriage,  without  a  word  from  his  wife,  and  despite 
serious  financial  difficulties  in  which  his  family  were 
involved,  Lord  Strange  settled  a  sum  of  £2,000  upon  his 
lady.  This  jointure  she  considered  extremely  generous, 
especially  as  only  a  very  small  part  of  her  own  marriage 
portion  had  then  been  paid.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the 
whole  sum  of  £50,000  promised  in  her  marriage  contract 
ever  reached  her.  At  any  rate,  her  brother,  Duke  Henry, 
for  some  years  postponed  payment  of  a  great  part  of  it, 
and  Charlotte  was  constrained  to  write  continually  to  her 
mother  and  sister-in-law  expressing  her  annoyance  that 
she  should  have  brought  nothing  but  expense  to  a  family 
from  whom  she  had  received  so  much  kindness.  At  one 
time  she  even  hinted  at  the  suspicion  that  her  brother  was 
trying  to  possess  himself  of  her  fortune,  and  no  doubt  she 
was  all  the  more  inclined  to  distrust  him  when,  in  1628, 
he  abjured  his  father's  faith,  and  returned  to  the  Church 
of  Rome. 

In  La  Tremoille's  excuse  it  may  be  urged  that,  owing  to 
constant  civil  war,  now  followed  by  war  with  England,  his 
estates  had  become  so  encumbered  that  it  was  difficult 
for  him  to  pay  either  the  capital  or  the  interest  of  his 
sister's  fortune.  Moreover,  the  Duke  was  certainly  not 
a  good  business  man,  for  we  find  him  selling  to  Cardinal 
Richelieu  the  domain  of  L'lle  Bouchard  for  a  sum  which 
barely  covered  the  value  of  the  forest  timber,  and  making 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  133 

an  equally  bad  bargain  when  he  parted  with  a  portion  of 
the  famous  forest  of  Broceliande.^ 

Nevertheless,  despite  her  husband's  financial  em- 
barrassments, Marie  de  La  Tour  was  at  this  very  time 
building  that  magnificent  chateau  of  Thouars  which,  with 
its  four  great  towers  and  fine  river  frontage,  dominating 
the  country-side  for  miles  around,  belies  Henry's  plea  of 
poverty  and  justifies  Tallement  des  Reaux  in  charging 
the  Duchesse  de  La  Tremoille  with  ambition.  For  the 
aspiring  Marie  de  La  Tour  determined  to  copy  no  less  a 
personage  than  that  great  builder  of  the  previous  century, 
Catherine  de  Medicis,  and  it  was  according  to  the  plans 
which  Philibert  de  I'Orme  had  drawn  for  the  Tuileries 
that  the  Duchess  was  now  building  her  castle  at  Thouars. 
Possibly,  however,  Marie,  more  fortunate  than  Charlotte 
in  the  payment  of  her  dowry,  may  have  been  using  her 
own  marriage  portion  for  the  building  of  the  family 
mansion.  The  association  of  her  name,  rather  than  that 
of  her  husband,  with  the  chateau  would  indicate  that  such 
was  the  case,  and  if  so,  then  the  rising  of  that  lordly  pile 
on  the  steep  bank  of  the  river  Thouet  is  not  inconsistent 
with  the  Duke's  protested  poverty. 

Except  for  these  financial  cares,  Charlotte's  early 
married  years  passed  peacefully,  disturbed  only  by  those 
natural  vicissitudes  of  life  and  death  which  ever  attend 
the  destinies  of  mortals.  In  1631,  her  mother  died,  but 
even  so  heavy  a  blow  was  perhaps  easier  to  bear  than  the 
vicious  courses  in  which  her  favourite  brother,  Frederic, 
Comte  de  Laval,  was  indulging,  in  the  Netherlands, 
and  in  London.  In  London  he  had  formed  a  union 
with  a  woman  of  the  middle  class,  a  Miss  Orpe,  who,  after 
having  born  him  several  children,  inflicted  a  heavy  blow  on 

*  Then  called  Quintin,  and  afterwards  known  as  the  ForSt  de  Lorges. 


134  FROM  THE   CRUSADES 

the  La  Tremoille  family  pride  by  claiming  to  be  his  wife 
and  assuming  the  title  of  Comtesse  de  Laval. 

Charlotte  first  became  a  mother  in  January,  1628. 
In  that  year  her  son  Charles,  afterwards  Lord  Derby,  was 
born  and  there  followed  in  rapid  succession  eight  other 
children,  of  whom  six  lived  to  grow  up.^ 

Of  English  nurses  and  English  nursing  Lady  Strange 
had  no  opinion  whatever.  The  English  custom  of  giving 
infants  the  full  use  of  their  limbs,  instead  of  binding  them 
tightly  on  to  a  cushion,  seemed  to  this  Frenchwoman 
utterly  barbarous.  And  one  night  she  was  horrified  to 
find  her  baby  boy  of  but  three  days  old  lying  in  his 
cradle  sucking  his  thumb.  "  Just  imagine  !  "  exclaimed 
this  outraged  parent  in  a  letter  to  her  sister-in-law. 
And  later  to  her  mother  she  wrote,  "  Why,  in  this  country 
they  put  infants  of  a  month  or  six  weeks  into  robes, 
and  I  am  thought  out  of  my  senses  because  I  have  not 
provided  any  dresses  for  my  baby."  No  doubt  poor 
Lady  Strange  found  her  opinion  of  English  child-nurture 
only  too  forcibly  confirmed  when  her  baby  Charlotte 
died  from  being  overlaid  by  her  nurse. 

Soon  after  1 631,  in  order  to  arrange  her  mother's  affairs. 
Lady  Strange  undertook  a  journey  to  Holland,  hoping, 
but  vainly  as  it  proved,  at  the  same  time  to  exercise 
some  salutary  influence  over  her  favourite  brother,  who 
was  then  at  the  Hague. 

Meanwhile,  in  England,  the  political  horizon  was 
darkening,  and  every  day  the  country  was  drawing  nearer 
to  civil  war. 

Lord  Strange,  despite  the  high  office  he  held — as  well 

1  Charlotte,  Henrietta  Maria,  Catherine,  Amelia  Anna  Sophia, 
Edward,  William  and  two  other  sons,  Henry  Frederick  and  James,  who 
both  died  in  infancy.  See  "  Stanley  Papers,"  Vol.  II.,  Part  III., 
pp-  cclxxxviii. — ccxcii. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  135 

as  being  with  his  father  joint  Heutenant  of  Lancashire 
and  Cheshire,  he  was  Chamberlain  of  Chester  and  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  North  Wales — never  took  any  very  active 
part  in  politics.  Only  now  and  again  did  he  attend  the 
meetings  of  Parliament  in  London.  His  tastes  were 
those  of  the  country  gentleman  ;  and  he  loved  to  spend 
his  days  on  the  hunting  field  or  in  his  magnificent  houses 
of  Lathom  and  Knowsley,  surrounded  by  his  retainers, 
entertaining  with  princely  hospitality  large  companies 
of  friends. 

"  The  air  of  London  disagrees  with  him/'  wrote  Lady 
Strange,  and  glad  she  was  that  he  did  not  go  there  often, 
for,  as  she  added,  "  in  these  times  there  is  always  some- 
thing to  fear.'*  Still  for  such  leaders  of  the  aristocracy 
as  were  Lord  and  Lady  Strange,  it  was  necessary  that 
sometimes  they  should  put  in  an  appearance  at  court. 
And  so,  in  1630,  we  find  them  both  figuring  in  royal 
pageantry  :  Charlotte's  husband  in  Ben  Jonson's  masque, 
"  Love's  Triumph  through  Callipolis,"  where  fifteen  lovers 
ranged  themselves  seven  and  seven  aside,  with  the  King 
in  the  centre,  and  each  with  a  cupid  bearing  a  lighted 
torch  before  him.  Lord  Strange  not  inappropriately 
representing  the  secure  lover ;  Charlotte  herself,  in 
another  masque,  was  one  of  a  circle  of  nymphs,  who, 
dressed  in  white,  embroidered  with  silver,  sat  round  the 
Queen  in  her  bower.  ^ 

But  in  the  early  years  of  her  motherhood  such  court 
festivities  were  not  greatly  to  Charlotte's  taste  ;  and  she 
preferred  to  remain  quietly  at  home  busily  plying  her 
needle  over  those  numerous  tiny  garments  necessary  for 
her  increasing  household. 

Then,  in  1642,  those  war  clouds  which  had  so  long  been 

1  Peter  Draper,  "  The  House  of  Stanley  "  (1864),  77. 


136  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

gathering  burst,  and  the  King  and  ParHament  took  up 
arms. 

For  so  peaceable  a  man  as  Lord  Strange  the  position 
was  extremely  difficult.  He  shared  the  opinion  of 
Lord  Kingston,  who  to  the  Parliament  emissaries  is  said 
to  have  replied  :  "  When  I  take  arms  with  the  King  against 
the  Parliament,  or  with  the  Parliament  against  the  King, 
let  a  cannon  bullet  divide  me  between  them."  ^ 

At  first,  in  his  own  county  of  Lancashire,  Lord  Strange 
endeavoured  to  arrange  a  compromise  between  the 
disputants.  Then,  having  failed,  he  yielded  to  his  wife's 
influence  and  declared  for  the  King. 

Faithful  to  her  early  teaching,  and  believing  strongly 
in  the  divine  right  of  kings,  to  Lady  Strange  the  support 
of  royalty  was  a  religion.  Pibrac's  line,  learnt  long  ago 
at  Thenars,  "  Love  the  state  as  thou  findest  it,  if  it  be 
royal,  love  royalty,"  she  had  never  forgotten.  And  now, 
putting  aside  all  considerations  of  personal  safety  on  her 
own,  her  husband's  and  her  children's  behalf,  she  urged 
Lord  Strange  to  join  the  King,  who  was  then  at  York. 

James  Stanley,  showing  now  as  always  perfect  confi- 
dence in  his  wife's  judgment,  adopted  her  counsel.  But 
Charlotte,  though  she  might  guide  the  course  of  her 
husband's  action,  could  not  convert  the  country  gentleman 
into  a  general  or  a  soldier  ;  and  throughout  the  civil  war 
the  career  of  Lord  Strange,  who,  in  this  year  1642,  by 
his  father's  death  became  Earl  of  Derby,  though  distin- 
guished by  admirable  courage  and  crowned  by  a  martyr's 
death,  was  little  but  a  series  of  misfortunes  and  failures. 

His  attempts  to  raise  Lancashire  in  the  King's  cause, 
and  to  take  Manchester  and  Warrington  were  attended 
with  ill  success.     The  troops,  which  he  had  raised  and 

1  See  "  Memoirs  of  Colonel  Hutchinson  "  (1906),  120. 


JAMES   STANLEY,  EARL   OF    DERBY 
Husband  of  Charlotte  de  La  Tr^moille 


TO  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  137 

equipped  at  his  own  expense,  were  almost  everywhere 
defeated,  and  in  May,  1643,  leaving  his  army  in  command 
of  Lord  Molyneux,  who  was  even  unhappier  than  his 
predecessor,  Derby,  went  to  York,  to  beg  the  Queen  to 
place  at  his  disposal  some  of  the  reinforcements  she  had 
recently  brought  from  Holland. 

Meanwhile  Lady  Derby  dashed  off  a  few  hurried  lines 
to  her  cousin,  Prince  Rupert,^  whom  she  knew  to  be  in 
Staffordshire,  but  two  days'  ride  from  Lathom,  entreating 
him  to  come  to  their  aid.  "  Take  pity  upon  my  husband, 
my  children  and  me,"  she  wrote,  "  for  we  are  ruined  for 
ever  if  God  and  your  Highness  have  not  compassion  upon 
us."  In  a  very  different  tone  was  this  hurried  note  from 
the  letter,  which,  a  year  previously,  soon  after  Prince 
Rupert's  landing  at  Tynemouth,  Charlotte  had  written 
to  her  kinsman.  Then  she  had  done  no  more  than 
request  the  Prince  to  use  his  influence  with  the  King 
to  induce  him  to  send  reinforcements  to  Lancashire. 

While  Derby  was  with  the  Queen  at  York,  he  heard 
that  his  subjects  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  having  revolted 
from  his  rule,  were  negotiating  with  the  Scots.  The  latter 
were  then  planning  an  invasion  of  England,  in  which 
they  hoped  to  make  Man  their  basis  of  attack  upon  the 
English  coast. 

In  deciding,  after  some  perplexity,  to  cross  over  to 

1  Lady  Strange  was  first  cousin  to  Rupert's  father,  the  Elector 
Palatine. 

William  of  Orange. 

i  I 

Charlotte  Brabantine  =  Claude  de  La  Tr^moille.  Louise  Julienne  = 

I  the  Elector  Palatine. 

I  I 

Charlotte,  Lady  Strange  Fr^d^ric,  Elector  Palatine 

(afterwards  Lady  Derby).  =  Elizabeth  Stuart. 

Prince  Rupert. 


138  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Man  and  to  leave  Lathom  to  the  mercy  of  the  Parliamen- 
tarian army  then  approaching  it,  Lord  Derby  must  have 
known  he  had  his  wife's  approval,  for  Charlotte  would 
never  have  allowed  her  own  or  her  family's  safety  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  the  defence  of  the  royal  cause.  But, 
indeed,  her  position  was  dangerous.  For  no  sooner  was 
the  Earl  out  of  the  country,  than  the  Governor  of 
Manchester  sent  an  envoy  to  demand  that  Lady  Derby 
should  submit  to  his  terms  or  surrender  her  house. 
Although  Charlotte  replied  proudly  that  it  suited  her 
to  do  neither,  the  reflection  that  Lathom  was  but  ill 
armed  and  provisioned  reduced  even  a  La  Tremoille  to 
compromise.  And  so  she  agreed  to  give  up  to  the  Round- 
heads such  lands  as  were  outside  her  park  wall,  stipulating 
that  she  should  be  permitted  to  remain  in  peace  in  her 
house  and  to  retain  a  sufficient  garrison  to  protect  herself 
and  her  household  from  the  insults  of  the  soldiers. 

Lady  Derby  could  not  have  made  a  wiser  move,  for 
in  view  of  the  siege,  which  she  wisely  saw  to  be  inevitable, 
she  was  now  able  to  concentrate  all  her  attention  on  the 
defence  of  her  house  and  grounds,  while,  by  the  surrender 
of  her  outlying  possessions  she  gained  time — a  respite  of 
no  less  than  eight  months — which  she  busily  occupied 
in  strengthening  her  garrison,  organising  her  defence, 
and  provisioning  Lathom. 

We  must  now  describe  the  position  and  structure  of 
that  mansion,  which  was  about  to  sustain  one  of  the  most 
famous  sieges  in  English  history.  Lathom  House  was 
so  spacious  that  at  one  time  it  is  said  to  have  accommo- 
dated no  less  than  three  Kings  and  their  retinues.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  its  size,  all  writers  agree  in  describing  it  as 
one  of  the  most  defensible  dwellings  in  the  kingdom. 
Girt  about  with  high  walls  two  yards  in  thickness,  and 


TO  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  139 

protected  by  nine  lofty  towers,  it  lay  in  a  hollow, 
surrounded  by  hills,  sloping  so  rapidly  as  to  render  it 
impossible  to  construct  any  fortifications  on  them  or 
to  work  artillery  with  impunity  from  the  castle  walls. 
Beyond  the  ramparts  was  a  moat  eight  yards  wide  and 
two  yards  deep,  bordered  by  a  strong  wall  of  palisades, 
and  only  to  be  crossed  from  strongly  fortified  postern 
gates  at  the  discretion  of  the  garrison.  In  the  midst  of 
the  house  was  a  high  building,  known  as  the  Eagle  Tower, 
and  commanding  all  the  rest.  The  gatehouse  was 
high  and  strong,  with  a  tower  on  each  side  of  it.  In 
the  towers  and  on  the  ramparts  were  placed  eight  or 
nine  small  pieces  of  ordnance  and  some  murderers,  or 
large  blunderbusses,  which  moved  upon  a  pivot  and  a  rest. 

Throughout  her  precious  eight  months*  respite,  steadily 
and  secretly  Lady  Derby  assembled  her  garrison  and 
gathered  in  her  provisions,  the  men  came  in  at  night 
bearing  victuals  and  ammunition  ;  yet,  despite  all  the 
Countess's  efforts,  there  was  a  scarcity  of  the  latter 
throughout  the  siege,  and  Lathom's  defenders  had  always 
to  be  sparing  of  their  powder  and  shot. 

In  the  end  the  garrison  numbered  300.  These  men 
the  Countess  divided  into  six  companies  under  six  captains, 
chosen  for  their  courage  and  integrity,  and  each  responsible 
for  the  training  of  his  company.  Over  them  all  Lady  Derby 
appointed  as  major  a  Scotsman,  one  Captain  Farmer, 
who  was  very  skilful  in  war,  having  served  in  the  Low 
Countries.^  But  Captain  Farmer,  in  his  turn,  received 
his  orders  from  the  Countess,  for  over  household  and 
garrison  Charlotte  reigned  supreme. 

So  stealthily  had  all  these  works  been  carried  out  that 
the  Parhamentarian  troops,  who,  under  Colonel  Rigby, 

^  He  afterwards  fell  at  Marston  Moor. 


140  FROM    THE    CRUSADES 

were  constantly  harrying  the  neighbourhood,  had  not 
the  remotest  idea  of  the  increase  in  the  garrison,  nor  of 
the  extent  of  the  defences  of  Lathom  House. 

Some  idea,  however,  of  what  had  been  taking  place 
dawned  upon  the  Roundhead  general  when,  early  in 
February,  1644,  a  reconnoitring  party,  having  approached 
to  within  gunshot  of  the  walls,  was  welcomed  with  such 
a  volley  of  musketry  that  several  of  their  number  were 
slain  and  one  was  taken  prisoner.  On  the  following  day, 
February  24th,  a  council  of  war  was  held  at  Manchester, 
and  it  was  decided  to  open  a  regular  attack  on  the  mansion. 
The  next  day  being  Sunday,  the  pulpits  of  Wigan,  the 
nearest  town  to  Lathom  and  but  six  miles  distant, 
resounded  with  anathemas  hurled  at  "  the  wicked  woman 
of  Babylon,"  who  was  opposing  the  progress  "  of  the 
Lord's  chosen  people,"  and  one  preacher,  converting  his 
sermon  into  an  announcement  of  the  siege,  which  was 
to  open  on  the  morrow,  blew  a  trumpet  blast  from  the 
fiftieth  chapter  of  Jeremiah,  calling  on  the  people  to  put 
themselves  "  in  array  against  Babylon  round  about  "  : 
"  all  ye  that  bend  the  bow,"  he  cried,  "  shoot  at  her, 
spare  no  arrows  ;   for  she  hath  sinned  against  the  Lord." 

The  Puritan  preacher  doubtless  hoped  a  very  few  Sab- 
baths hence  to  preach  another  sermon,  taking  for  his  text 
the  next  verse  :  "  Shout  against  her  round  about  :  she 
hath  given  her  hand  :  her  foundations  are  fallen,  her 
walls  are  thrown  down  :  for  it  is  the  vengeance  of  the 
Lord  :   take  vengeance  upon  her." 

But  "  the  woman  of  Babylon  "  was  not  to  be  so  easily 
vanquished  ;  and  as  long  as  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille 
commanded  within  the  walls  of  Lathom,  they  stood 
firm  against  the  forces  of  the  Parliament. 

Of  the  details  of  this  memorable  siege  we  are  fortunate 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  141 

in  possessing  a  graphic  account  written  by  an  eye-witness, 
one  of  the  Countess's  Httle  band  of  defenders.  This 
narrative  is  to  be  found  printed  at  the  end  of  Bohn's 
edition  of  the  "  Memoirs  of  Colonel  Hutchinson."  Two 
manuscripts  of  it  still  exist,  one  in  the  Ashmolean  Museum, 
Oxford/  another  among  the  Harleian  MSS.  in  the  British 
Museum.^  Which  of  Lathom's  defenders  wrote  this  story 
is  a  question  which  has  been  much  disputed.  It  may 
have  been  Edward  Halsall,  a  youth  of  only  seventeen 
at  the  time  of  the  siege,  or,  more  probably,  a  maturer 
soldier,  Chissenhall  by  name,  one  of  Charlotte's  captains.^ 

It  was  on  Tuesday,  February  27th,*  that  Lathom 
was  completely  invested.  Then  the  troops  of  Sir 
Thomas  Fairfax  encamped  round  about  the  house  at  the 
distance  of  a  mile  or  two.  But  before  the  actual  attack 
began,  a  week  passed  in  negotiations  between  Lady  Derby 
and  Parliamentary  envoys.  One  set  of  proposals  after 
another  she  refused,  replying  finally  that  she  declined 
all  their  articles,  and  was  truly  happy  in  that  they  refused 
hers,  for  she  would  rather  hazard  her  life  than  offer  the 
like  again.  Then  she  added  defiantly  that,  though  a 
woman  and  a  foreigner,  divorced  from  her  friends  and 
robbed  of  her  estate,  she  was  ready  to  receive  the  enemy's 
utmost  violence,  trusting  in  God  for  protection  and 
deliverance. 

The  next  morning^  when  the  Countess's  household 
awoke,  it  seemed  to  them  that  the  siege  had  begun  in 
real  earnest.  For  during  the  night,  at  about  a  musket- 
shot's  distance  from  the  house,  on  the  sloping  ground 

1  A  Wood  MS.  d.  16. 

2  No.  2043. 

»  Another  account  of  the  siege  may  be  found  in  the  "  Memoirs  of 
John  Seacombe  "  (1821). 
4  N.S.  March  7th. 
»  March  6th  O.S. 


142  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

surrounding  it,  the  Parliamentarians  had  been  throwing 
up  earthworks  for  the  protection  of  the  ordnance  which 
were  to  fire  upon  the  towers  of  Lathom.  These  earth- 
works, during  the  following  days,  were  continued  by  the 
people  of  the  country-side,  who,  much  against  their 
will,  had  been  pressed  into  the  Parliamentarian  service 
by  Fairfax  and  his  colonels.  Apparently  the  sympathies 
of  these  country  folk  were  royalist.  And  although, 
instigated  by  Fairfax,  six  of  them  waited  on  Lady  Derby 
to  represent  to  her  that  it  would  be  for  their  benefit  if 
she  would  consent  to  treat  with  the  Parliamentarians, 
when  she  explained  to  them  her  reasons  for  resisting, 
they  went  away  crying  :  *'  God  save  the  King  and  the 
Earl  of  Derby  !  '* 

Fairfax,  however,  still  delayed  to  open  the  attack, 
either  because  he  regarded  the  siege  as  hopeless,  or 
because  this  chivalrous  general  disliked  making  war  upon 
a  woman.  So,  on  Monday,  March  nth,  he  renewed 
negotiations,  which  proved  as  fruitless  as  the  earlier  ones 
had  been.  And  on  the  following  day  it  was  the  besieged 
who  opened  the  attack.  A  hundred  foot,  supported  by 
twelve  horsemen,  boldly  sallied  forth  from  Lathom  gates, 
went  right  up  to  the  enemy's  works  without  firing  a  shot, 
then,  proceeding  to  fire,  drove  them  from  their  holes, 
slaying  thirty,  taking  forty  arms,  one  drum  and  six 
prisoners  without  any  injury  to  themselves. 

These  sallies  repeated  on  succeeding  days  inflicted  great 
hurt  on  the  besiegers,  and  also  unhappily  on  the  poor 
country  folk  at  work  in  the  trenches.  The  enemy 
replied  by  attempting  to  bombard  the  house.  But  the 
configuration  of  the  land  rendered  their  cannon  useless. 

*'  On  Tuesday  night,"  writes  our  eye-witness,  "  they 
brought  up  one  piece  of  cannon.     On  Wednesday  morning 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  143 

they  gave  us  some  sport.  They  then  played  their  cannon 
three  shots,  the  ball  a  twenty-four  pounder.  They  first 
tried  the  wall,  which,  being  found  proof  without  yielding 
or  showing  the  least  impression  (sic),  they  afterwards  shot 
higher  to  beat  down  the  pinnacles  or  turrets,  or  else  to 
please  the  women  that  came  to  see  the  spectacle." 

Dismayed  by  the  failure  of  his  bombardment,  Fairfax 
made  another  attempt  to  bring  the  Countess  to  terms, 
and  this  time  he  thought  to  possess  an  infallible  argument 
in  a  letter  from  Lord  Derby  which  had  just  reached  him. 
The  Earl  had  returned  from  Man,  and,  alarmed  by  the 
news  of  his  wife's  danger,  he  asked  Fairfax  to  permit  the 
Countess  and  her  children,  should  it  seem  good  to  her,  to 
leave  the  house  and  proceed  to  a  place  of  safety.  But 
Lord  Derby,  when  he  penned  that  request,  had  no  idea  of 
his  wife's  spirit.  To  such  a  Minerva  "  it  did  not  seem 
good  "  to  leave  her  home  in  the  hour  of  danger,  for 
Charlotte  knew  full  well  that  she  was  the  soul  of  the 
defence,  and  that  in  her  absence  Lathom  would  soon  be 
taken.  So,  thanking  Sir  Thomas  for  his  courtesy,  the 
Countess  professed  her  willingness  to  adopt  her  Lord's 
suggestion,  but  only  when  she  herself  was  fully  persuaded 
that  such  really  was  his  pleasure.  The  blockade  was 
then  resumed.  But  soon  afterwards,  Lady  Derby, 
taking  advantage  of  a  sally,  contrived  to  get  two 
messengers  through  the  enemy's  lines,  one  bearing  a 
letter  to  her  husband,  and  the  other  one  to  Prince  Rupert. 
The  latter  was  written  in  a  very  different  tone  from  the 
despairing  request  she  had  addressed  to  her  kinsman  but 
a  year  ago.  By  now  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille  had 
proved  her  mettle,  and  this,  her  third  appeal  to  her 
cousin,  reveals  a  serenity  and  strength  which  is  truly 
admirable  in  a  lone   woman   and  a  foreigner    at   the 


144  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

head  of    a  small    garrison,    besieged    by    an  army    of 
3,000  men. 

"  Sir,"  wrote  the  Countess,  "  I  make  bold  to  write 
these  lines  to  your  Highness  to  implore  you  very  humbly 
to  be  so  kind  as  to  converse  with  the  bearer  of  this  letter 
touching  the  condition  of  this  country,  which  has  great 
need  of  your  presence,  as  your  Highness  will  be  able  to 
gather  for  yourself  from  the  words  of  my  messenger,  in 
whose  hands  I  leave  it,  while  I  entreat  you  believe  me 
more  than  any  one,  Sir,  the  very  humble  and  very 
obedient  and  very  faithful  servant  of  your  Highness. 

"  C.  DE  Tremaille."  ^ 

Though  the  Countess  was  thus  reduced  to  imploring  aid 
from  her  husband  and  her  cousin,  the  besiegers  v/ere 
beginning  to  despair  of  ever  forcing  her  to  surrender  by 
human  means  at  any  rate.  And  so  they  resolved  to 
beseech  the  divinity  to  intervene  on  their  side.  "  All 
ministers  and  other  well- affected  persons  "  of  Lancashire 
were  called  upon  to  commend  the  Parliament's  case  to 
God.  Meanwhile,  those  "  well-affected  "  persons  who 
had  been  bombarding  Lathom  desisted  from  action,  in 
order,  as  our  eye-witness  puts  it,  "  to  sleep  out  four  days 
in  the  pious  exercises  of  prayer  and  supplication." 

The  Countess  and  her  household  used  this  respite  to 
prepare  a  somewhat  rude  awakening  for  these  pious 
sleepers.  And,  on  April  loth,  the  besieged  sallied  forth 
and  attacked  the  enemy's  lines  with  such  vigour,  that  all 
their  cannon  were  nailed,  fifty  of  their  men  slain,  sixty 
arms  taken,  with  one  set  of  colours  and  three  drums,  all 
with  the  loss  to  the  assailants  of  only  one  man.  The 
besiegers'  most  formidable  weapon,  however,  Charlotte's 
men  failed  to  damage  :  the  Parliamentarians  had  recently 

*  Charlotte's  usual  way  of  writing  her  name. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  145 

brought  from  London  a  huge  mortar,  which  was  a  form  of 
artillery  but  newly  invented.  The  Lathom  soldiers  did 
their  very  best  to  silence  this  redoubtable  engine  of  war  ; 
they  nailed  it,  and  battered  it  with  smith's  hammers,  but 
all  to  no  purpose,  for  its  mouth  was  too  wide  to  be  stopped. 
And  for  the  next  thirteen  days  the  mortar  was  destined 
to  inflict  considerable  damage  on  the  house  and  its 
occupants,  but  not  nearly  such  serious  injury  as  it  might 
have  caused  had  the  firing  of  it  been  properly  under- 
stood. Not  even  Lathom's  stout  ramparts  could  have 
stood  firm  against  shells  and  stones  fifty-three  inches 
in  diameter,  had  they  been  fired  so  as  to  describe  that 
peculiar  curve  which  rendered  the  mortar  the  most 
deadly  engine  of  attack  upon  a  house  lying  in  a  hollow 
like  that  now  being  assailed.  The  inexperience  of  the 
gunners,  however,  caused  the  balls  generally  to  follow  a 
horizontal  direction,  and  only  now  and  again  to  do 
any  serious  damage.  Once  a  ball  fell  into  the  dining- 
room  where  the  Countess  and  her  children  sat  at  meat, 
and  twice  shells  entered  Lady  Derby's  bed-chamber  ; 
but  almost  miraculously  on  neither  occasion  was  anyone 
hurt.  And  it  was  only  with  great  difiiculty  that  the 
Countess  could  be  persuaded  to  change  her  room,  which 
seemed  especially  open  to  attack,  for  once  previously, 
before  the  mortar's  arrival,  a  saker  bullet  had  come  in 
through  her  window. 

But  nothing  dismayed  the  Countess  or  shook  her 
determination  to  continue  her  resistance.  Never  would 
she  yield  as  long  as  a  roof  remained  over  her  head, 
she  protested.  And  at  length  Fairfax,  who  was  badly 
wanted  in  other  parts  of  the  country,  grew  tired  of  so 
unprofitable  an  enterprise.  On  April  24th  he  marched 
off,  leaving  the  conduct  of  the  siege  to  Colonel  Rigby,  a 

C.R.  L 


146  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

gruff,  uncouth  attorney,  very  different  from  his  courteous 
and  cultured  superior. 

In  keeping  with  Rigby's  character  was  the  insolent 
tone  of  the  message  by  which,  on  the  day  after  his 
general's  departure,  he  called  upon  Lady  Derby  to  sur- 
render before  eight  o'clock  on  the  following  afternoon. 
But  in  the  Countess,  Rigby  had  met  his  match.  Haughtily 
tearing  up  the  Colonel's  missive,  she  told  his  messenger 
that  as  a  reward  for  his  pains  he  deserved  to  be  hanged 
at  her  gates,  and  that  to  the  traitor  who  sent  him  he 
might  say  that  neither  house,  goods  nor  persons  should 
he  have,  that  rather  than  fall  into  his  hands  she  would 
set  fire  to  the  place  and  consign  herself,  her  children  and 
her  soldiers  to  the  flames. 

These  were  bold  words  ;  and  on  hearing  them  the 
garrison  shouted  :  "  We  will  die  for  his  Majesty  and  your 
Honour.     God  save  the  King !  " 

For  herself.  Lady  Derby  knew  no  fear.  Yet,  despite 
the  brave  defiance  she  had  sent  to  Rigby,  there  were 
moments  when  she  trembled  for  her  children.  "  The 
little  ladies,"  writes  the  eye-witness,  "  had  stomachs 
to  digest  cannon,  but  they,  no  more  than  the  stoutest 
soldiers,  had  hearts  for  grenades." 

So,  no  sooner  was  the  messenger  departed  than  the 
Countess  summoned  a  council  of  war,  and  told  her 
captains  that  something  must  be  done  to  stop  the  mouth 
of  the  mortar.  As  the  result  of  these  deliberations 
another  sally  was  made,  which  was  to  prove  the  boldest 
and  bravest  of  the  siege.  At  four  o'clock  the  next 
morning,  while  the  besiegers  were  asleep,  Lady  Derby 
herself,  with  most  of  her  garrison,  issued  forth  from  the 
gates.  They  approached  the  mortar  and  took  possession 
of    it ;    then   the   soldiers,  encouraged   by  their  gallant 


TO  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  147 

Countess,  dragged  it  inside  the  ramparts.  There  in  the 
courtyard,  Hke  a  dead  Hon,  lay  the  monster  that  had 
frightened  the  brave  defenders  of  Lathom  from  their 
meat  and  sleep.  ''  Everyone  had  his  eye  and  his  foot 
upon  it,  shouting  and  rejoicing  as  merrily  as  they  used 
to  do  with  their  ale  and  their  bagpipes." 

And  even  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille,  never  very  joyful 
at  the  best  of  times,  and  grimmer  than  ever  now  after 
eight  anxious  weeks  of  suffering — even  Charlotte  was 
jubilant,  and  in  her  gladness  she  instructed  her  chaplain, 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Rutter,  to  hold  a  public  thanks- 
giving. 

Rigby,  too,  had  arranged  a  thanksgiving  for  that  day, 
and  had  invited  the  people  of  the  countryside  to  come 
and  see  the  walls  of  Lathom  House  fall  beneath  the 
mortar's  volleys  of  shot  and  shell ;  but  now  his  great 
battering-ram  lay  silent  and  secure  within  the  enemy's 
gates,  and  there  remained  for  the  Colonel  nothing  but 
rage  and  mortification.  In  despair  he  appealed  to  the 
County  Committee  to  send  him  reinforcements.  *'  We  are 
obliged  to  drive  them  back  as  often  as  five  or  six  times 
in  the  same  night,"  he  wrote.  "  These  constant  alarms, 
the  strength  of  the  garrison,  and  the  numerous  losses 
we  have  had,  oblige  the  soldiers  to  guard  the  trenches 
sometimes  two  nights  running.  My  son  does  this  duty 
as  well  as  the  youngest  officer.  And  for  my  own  part, 
I  am  ready  to  sink  under  the  weight,  having  worked 
beyond  my  strength." 

In  response  to  Rigby's  request  Colonel  Holland  was 
sent  from  Manchester  with  reinforcements.  But  these 
new  troops  seem  to  have  been  singularly  ineffective ; 
and  we  read  that  after  the  mortar's  capture  until  the 
raising  of  the  siege  on  May  26th,  the  garrison  enjoyed  a 

L2 


148  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

continued  calm,  so  that  they  were  scarce  sensible  of  a 
siege  save  for  the  restraint  put  upon  their  liberty. 

On  May  23rd  Rigby  sent  another  and  the  last  of  his 
insolent  messages,  to  which  Lady  Derby  replied  as 
defiantly  as  before,  that  unless  the  enemy  would  treat 
with  her  lord,  they  should  never  have  her  or  any  of  her 
friends  alive. 

The  Countess,  when  she  sent  this  defiance,  had  no  idea 
that  her  lord  was  then  close  at  hand.  But  that  very 
night  one  of  her  scouts  returned  to  Lathom  and  told  how 
Prince  Rupert  was  in  Cheshire,  and  with  him  the  Earl, 
and  that  they  were  coming  to  raise  the  siege. 

From  more  than  one  quarter  Prince  Rupert  had  been 
urged  to  go  to  his  gallant  cousin's  rescue  ;  her  husband 
had  implored  the  Prince's  help,  so  had  the  Royalist 
commander  of  Chester,  and  finally  the  King  himself 
wrote  that  while  desirous  not  to  interfere  with  his 
nephew's  plans,  he  would  be  glad  to  learn  that  the 
Countess  of  Derby  was  out  of  danger.  Thus  it  fell  out 
that  the  Prince,  having  been  joined  by  Derby,  was  now 
marching  to  Lathom. 

The  news  that  on  May  25th  Rupert  had  taken  Stockport 
reached  the  besiegers  on  the  following  day.  That  night 
they  broke  up  their  camp  and  vanished  in  the  darkness, 
so  quietly  that  the  inhabitants  of  Lathom  knew  nothing 
of  their  departure  ;  and  the  Countess,  when  she  awoke 
on  the  morning  of  the  27th,  beheld  with  immense  astonish- 
ment and  unspeakable  relief  that  the  enemy  had  departed. 

On  the  evening  of  the  following  day  the  Earl  and  his 
Countess  were  reunited.  Between  the  Parliamentarians* 
flight  and  Derby's  return  had  intervened  the  RoyaHst 
capture  of  Bolton-le-Moors,  where  Stanley  and  Rupert 
wreaked  their  revenge  on  Rigby  and  his  men   for  all  the 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  149 

suffering  they  had  for  eight  weeks  been  inflicting  on  the 
Countess  and  her  children. 

The  Earl,  on  his  return  to  his  damaged  home  and  to 
his  brave  wife  and  children,  had  been  preceded  by  Sir 
Richard  Crane,  who  came  on  the  part  of  Prince  Rupert 
to  lay  at  his  courageous  cousin's  feet  twenty-two  flags 
captured  from  the  enemy  at  Bolton,  and  to  announce 
to  her  that  the  Prince  was  pleased  to  accept  her  invitation 
to  spend  a  few  days  at  Lathom  on  his  way  to  York. 
Charlotte,  therefore,  made  haste  to  prepare  to  receive 
her  princely  cousin  with  as  good  cheer  as  might  be,  in 
a  house  strangely  shattered  by  the  siege,  and  still  bearing 
traces  of  the  work  of  the  enemy's  cannon. 

Rupert  was  then  at  the  height  of  his  renown.  His 
arrogance  and  hot-headedness  had  not  yet  alienated  the 
cavaliers,  who,  in  this  year  1644,  regarded  the  King's 
nephew  as  almost  invincible.  Lady  Derby  and  her  cousin 
must  have  been  well  acquainted  by  repute,  for  it  was 
the  Prince's  mother,  the  fascinating  Elizabeth  Stuart, 
who,  at  the  court  of  the  Hague,  had  arranged  Charlotte's 
marriage  ;  but  at  that  time  young  Rupert  himself  was 
away  at  the  University  of  Ley  den.  Probably,  therefore, 
the  cousins  never  met  until  that  glad  summer  day, 
when  the  Prince  of  five-and-twenty,  the  handsomest  and 
bravest  commander  of  the  time,  rode  proudly  through 
the  battered  gates  of  Lathom  to  congratulate,  in  a  voice 
half  broken  with  emotion,  his  valiant  kinswoman  on  the 
glorious  victory  she  had  won. 

Many  a  noble  and  many  a  royal  guest  had  in  times  past 
been  royally  entertained  beneath  Lathom's  hospitable 
roof.  But  now,  with  the  resources  of  her  house  all 
wasted  by  the  siege,  with  her  jewels  pawned  to  raise 
money  for  the  defence  of  her  home,  with  robes  of  state 


150  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

laid  aside,  and  triumphs  of  costume  and  drapery  for- 
gotten, Charlotte  found  court  ceremonial  impossible. 
Yet  never  was  guest  welcomed  with  greater  rejoicing,  and 
never  did  more  fervent  thanksgivings  rise  from  the 
chapel  than  on  the  occasion  of  Prince  Rupert's  coming 
to  Lathom. 

During  this  brief  visit  the  Prince  was  busily  occupied 
in  arranging  for  the  repair  and  strengthening  of  the 
fortifications  of  the  house,  and  in  rewarding  the  officers 
who  had  so  gallantly  served  their  King  and  their  lady. 
Before  his  departure,  Rupert  advised  the  Countess  to 
retire  with  her  children  to  the  Isle  of  Man,  enjoining  her 
to  take  great  care  of  her  sons  and  daughters,  for,  he  said, 
''  the  children  of  such  a  father  and  mother  will  one  day 
render  to  their  King  as  much  service  as  yours  has  received 
from  you.'* 

It  was  not,  however,  until  more  than  three  weeks  after 
the  Royalist  rout  at  Marston  Moor  that  Charlotte 
adopted  her  cousin's  counsel.  The  battle  was  fought  on 
July  2nd  ;  and  on  the  30th  Lady  Derby  and  her  children 
crossed  over  to  the  Isle  of  Man.  Whether  the  Earl 
accompanied  them  we  do  not  know.  But,  if  he  did,  his 
stay  in  the  island  was  brief,  for  in  September  we  find 
him  back  at  Lathom,  which  was  again  being  besieged  by 
the  Parliamentarians.  The  siege  dragged  on  for  over 
a  year.  Not  until  December,  1645,  did  the  gallant 
garrison  surrender.  By  that  time  the  Earl  had  rejoined 
his  family  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  and  it  was  there  that  they 
heard  of  the  wanton  destruction  of  their  beautiful  home, 
how  it  had  been  razed  to  the  ground,  all  its  valuable 
furniture  and  works  of  art  scattered  or  demolished,  and 
only  a  few  timber  buildings  left  to  mark  the  site  of  the 
lordly  Lathom. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  151 

For  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Derby,  as  indeed  for  all 
Royalists,  the  next  five  years,  from  Lathom's  fall  in 
December,  1644,  until  the  King's  execution  in  January, 
1649,  were  full  of  suffering  and  anxiety.  Most  of  this 
time  the  Countess  spent  in  the  Isle  of  Man.  And  from 
her  letters  to  her  sister-in-law,  Marie  de  la  Tour,  Duchesse 
de  La  Tremoille,  we  learn  that  to  grief  over  national 
affairs  were  added  family  troubles.  These  arose  chiefly 
from  the  conduct  of  her  eldest  son,  Charles,  Lord  Strange, 
then  a  youth  of  eighteen.  Only  a  year  after  Lathom's 
fall,  Charles  departed  secretly  from  the  Isle  of  Man,  and, 
crossing  over  to  Ireland,  made  his  way  thence  to  Paris. 
He  left  behind  him  letters  saying  that  he  was  going  to  his 
Aunt,  the  Duchess.  And  to  her  Lady  Derby  wrote, 
imploring  that  for  her  sister's  sake  she  would  receive  the 
truant  kindly  and  be  a  mother  to  him,  *'  all  the  more," 
she  adds,  "  because  what  he  has  done  has  offended 
Monsieur  his  father  and  me.  If  he  obeys  you  he  will  the 
more  readily  obtain  our  pardon." 

Such  kindness  the  Countess  was  entitled  to  expect  from 
her  sister-in-law  ;  for,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter, 
many  years  earlier  the  Derbys  had  hospitably  received 
into  their  London  house  the  Duchess's  own  runaway  son, 
Henri  Charles  de  La  Tremoille.  Marie  de  la  Tour, 
therefore,  was  only  too  wilHng  to  grant  her  sister's 
request,  winning  her  gratitude  and  that  of  her  husband, 
who  wrote  to  Madame  de  La  Tremoille  that  he  could 
never  sufficiently  thank  her  for  the  care  she  had  deigned 
to  take  of  his  truant  son. 

Their  first-born's  evasion  must  have  been  a  great 
disappointment  to  Lord  and  Lady  Derby.  For,  from  his 
cradle  they  had  spared  no  pains,  by  dint  of  careful  tuition 
and  advice,  to  fit  him  for  the  exalted  position  he  was  one 


152  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

day  to  occupy.  Among  the  Stanley  papers  is  a  volume^ 
of  rules  and  aphorisms  written  by  Lord  Derby  for  his 
son's  benefit,  and  dealing  with  every  phase  of  behaviour, 
and  every  vicissitude  of  life,  health,  table  manners, 
expenditure,  the  regulations  of  a  household,  and  especially 
the  choice  of  a  wife.  "  Choose  not  a  dwarf  or  a  fool," 
Charles  was  advised,  "  for  the  children  of  one  will  be 
pigmies,  and  the  other  your  disgrace  by  a  continual 
clack;  there  is  nothing  more  fulsome  than  a  she-fool." 
Looking  still  further  ahead,  the  Earl  admonishes  his  son 
to  bring  up  his  children  with  "  learning  and  obedience, 
yet  without  austerity,  praising  them  openly,  and  repre- 
hending them  secretly.'' 

But,  above  all  things,  Charles  is  enjoined  to  cultivate 
home  life  and  to  avoid  travel,  especially  in  Italy,  because 
in  that  country  "  is  nothing  to  be  learned  but  pride,  vice, 
luxury,  and  atheism,  with  a  few  useless  words  of  no 
profit."  "  For  words,"  the  Earl  insists,  "  you  have  no 
need  to  travel,  your  mother  having  conferred  on  you  the 
benefit  of  her  language." 

But  travel  was  the  one  thing  Charles  Stanley  desired, 
partly,  no  doubt,  in  order  to  escape  from  his  father's 
persistent  aphorisms  and  his  tutor's  virtuous  precepts  ; 
and  so,  eluding  the  vigilance  of  the  learned  Mr.  Rutter, 
he  exchanged  the  monotony  of  life  in  the  Isle  of  Man  for 
the  livelier  atmosphere  of  Paris. 

Eventually  Lord  Strange  was  to  win  his  father's  for- 
giveness, and  to  prove  a  loyal  and  affectionate  son.  But 
with  his  mother  henceforth  he  was  never  on  the  best  of 
terms.  Charlotte  could  not  recover  from  her  disappoint- 
ment  at  her  boy's   truancy.     To  her  sister-in-law  she 

1  Part  III.,  1S67,  42  et  seq.  "  The  Stanley  Papers  "  have  been 
published  by  the  Chetham  Society. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  153 

wrote  of  him  as  "  a  useless  creature,"  and  one  from  whom 
all  she  could  expect  was  that  he  should  eschew  evil 
practices,  and  avoid  following  the  example  of  his  uncle, 
the  Comte  de  Laval,  Charlotte's  favourite  brother,  who 
three  years  earlier  had  died  from  wounds  received  in  a 
duel.^  Nevertheless,  for  this  '*  useless  creature  "  Lady 
Derby  was  careful  to  draw  up  a  programme  of  studies, 
to  pursue  him  with  reams  of  judicious  advice,  to  scheme 
for  his  worldly  advancement  by  asking  the  Duchess  to 
present  him  to  Henrietta  Maria  and  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
who  were  then  in  Paris,  and  to  plan  sending  him  to  learn 
the  art  of  war  from  his  kinsman,  the  great  Turenne. 

Soon,  however,  the  Countess's  attention  was  diverted 
from  her  truant  son  by  a  new  danger  which  threatened 
her  husband.  Towards  the  close  of  1646  negotiations 
were  in  progress  between  the  Scots,  whom  the  King  had 
joined  at  Newcastle,  and  the  members  of  the  Long 
Parliament.  As  part  of  the  projected  settlement  it  was 
proposed  to  proclaim  an  amnesty  for  the  King's  sup- 
porters ;  but  from  that  pardon  certain  eminent  Royalists 
were  to  be  excluded,  and  among  them  was  Lord 
Derby. 

With  her  usual  indefatigable  energy,  the  Countess 
resolved  to  undertake  the  hazardous  and  difficult  journey 
to  London,  there  to  petition  the  Parliament  to  include 
her  husband  in  the  Amnesty  Bill.  Having  waited  long 
and  anxiously  for  a  passport,  she  received  it  in  mid- 
January.  And  then,  in  tempestuous  weather,  and 
embarking  in  an  unseaworthy  boat.  Lady  Derby  bade 
farewell  to  her  fearful  husband  and  children,  and  after  a 
forty-eight  hours'  passage,  landed  safely  in  Lancashire. 

*  Fought  at  Venice  with  Le  Coudray  Montpensier  in  February, 
1642. 


154  PROM  THE  CRUSADES 

There  she  spent  a  fortnight  procuring  money  for  her 
further  journey.  On  March  loth  she  was  at  Chelsea  ; 
and  in  London  or  its  neighbourhood  she  remained  for 
over  a  year  negotiating  with  the  ParHament,  and  not 
without  success. 

Some  weeks  after  her  arrival  she  was  able  to  write  to 
her  sister-in-law,  **  that  the  Lords  have  already  struck 
out  Monsieur  your  brother-in-law's  name  from  the  list  of 
exceptions.  ...  It  passed  without  any  opposition,  but 
the  Commons  have  done  nothing,  as  it  has  not  been  sent 
to  them  yet  from  the  Lords  ;  but  I  am  encouraged  to 
hope  that,  with  God's  help,  there  will  be  no  difficulty." 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year,  probably  owing  to  Lady 
Derby's  intervention,  one-fifth  of  the  Earl's  estate,  which 
had  been  confiscated  by  Parliament,  was  granted  to  his 
children.  The  Manor  of  Knowsley,  with  its  house,  lands 
and  appurtenances,  was  included  in  this  restoration,  and 
thither  the  Earl  sent  his  daughters,  Catherine  and 
Amelia,  to  reside  at  Knowsley  under  the  protection  of 
Sir  Thomas  Fairfax,  in  order  that  they  might  keep 
possession  of  the  house  and  receive  that  part  of 
their  father's  income  which  Parliament  had  granted 
them. 

It  was  in  September,  1647,  that  Lady  Derby  twice 
visited  the  King  at  Hampton  Court.  Of  her  second 
visit  she  writes  :  "  He  is  hopeful  about  his  affairs.  The 
Princes,  his  children,  see  him  two  or  three  times  a  week  ; 
they  are  living  only  three  miles  from  Hampton  Court, 
the  finest  of  his  houses." 

While  thus  earnestly  engaged  in  matters  which  so 
vitally  concerned  her  husband  and  children.  Lady  Derby 
never  lost  interest  in  the  doings  of  her  relatives  in  France. 
Her  heart  swelled  with  family  pride  when  her  brother. 


CHARLOTTE   DE   LA   TREMOILLE,  COUNTESS   OF    DERBY,  WITH    HER 

HUSBAND   AND  THEIR    DAUGHTER,  CATHERINE 

From  a  picture  by  Vandyke,  in  the  collection  of  the  Earl  of  Clarendon 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  155 

Duke  Henry,  at  the  Council  of  Munster^  in  1648,  laid 
claim  to  the  kingdom  of  Naples.'^ 

But  her  pride  fell  when,  shortly  afterwards,  her  dead 
brother's  mistress.  Miss  Orpe,  claimed  his  estate  and 
assumed  the  title  of  Comtesse  de  Laval. ^  Miss  Orpe  was 
connected  with  the  English  Royal  household,  and  in  the 
suit  she  brought  against  the  house  of  La  Tremoille  was 
protected  by  Queen  Henrietta  Maria.  Despite  this 
powerful  patronage,  however,  "  that  woman,"  as  the 
Countess  described  the  plaintiff,  lost  her  case,  and  the 
Laval  estate  was  divided  between  Count  Frederic's 
brother  and  sister. 

While  she  was  in  London,  the  Countess  was  writing 
to  her  sister-in-law  long  lamentations  over  the  woeful 
plight  to  which  the  Parliament's  government  had  reduced 
her  adopted  land.  "  On  every  hand,"  she  wrote,  "  were 
discontent  and  disagreement,  falling  out  between  Lords 
and  Commons,  and  between  the  Parliament  and  the 
army,  but  worst  of  all  the  abuse  of  religion,  the  disregard 
of  God's  commandments,  books  printed  which  deny  the 
Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord's  Prayer  neglected,  the  Sacraments 
administered  according  to  the  fancy  of  the  administrator, 
any  one  allowed  to  preach,  even  women,  baptism  thought 
nothing  of,  and  not  administered  to  children,  and  worse 
things  which  make  all  who  have  any  religion  left  shudder." 

In  the  spring  of  1648  lack  of  pence  compelled  Lady 

1  Summoned  to  adjust  the  conflicting  demands  of  the  numerous 
Princes  engaged  in  the  Thirty  Years  War. 

2  Through  his  ancestress,  Anne  de  Laval,  granddaughter  of  Fr^d^ric, 
King  of  Naples,  and  wife  of  Fran9ois  de  La  Tremoille  (see  ante,  p.  87). 
For  two  centuries  the  kings  of  France  had  claimed  to  be  kings  of  Naples. 
They  now  abrogated  their  claim  in  favour  of  the  La  Tremoilles,  who 
continued  to  assert  theirs  down  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
And  in  virtue  of  this  pretended  right  the  eldest  son  of  the  house  hence- 
forth (until  1 81 5)  was  styled  Prince  de  Tarente.  See  "  Les  La 
Tremoilles  pendant  cinq  Siecles,"  IV.,  12s  et  seq. 

"  See  ante,  p.  134. 


156  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Derby  to  leave  London  without  having  obtained  her 
object,  for  the  Commons  had  not  yet  undertaken  to 
include  her  husband  in  the  Amnesty  Bill.  But  she 
hoped  much  from  the  divisions  among  her  enemies. 
These  hopes  were  destined  to  disappointment. 

On  her  way  back  to  the  Isle  of  Man,  the  Countess 
visited  her  daughters  at  Knowsley.  In  February,  1649, 
she  was  back  again  in  the  Island.  And  there  she  and  her 
husband  heard  of  the  King's  execution. 

For  this  event  they  had  long  been  prepared.  Years 
before,  at  the  time  of  Strafford's  death,^  Lord  Derby  had 
described  the  Parliament  as  *'  wolves,  that,  after  their 
first  tasting  of  man's  blood,  grow  bold,  and  mad  of  more 
.  .  .  worse  than  beasts,  they  make  noe  difference  of 
drinkes ;  for  they  now  become  ravenous  of  royall  blood." 

It  was  not  until  six  months  after  the  King's  execution 
that  Lady  Derby's  petition  to  the  Parliament  received 
any  definite  answer.  Then,  on  July  12th,  Lieutenant- 
General  Ireton,  on  the  Parliament's  behalf,  proposed  to 
the  Earl,  that  in  return  for  the  peaceable  possession  of 
half  his  estate,  Derby  should  surrender  the  Isle  of  Man. 

The  vehemence  with  which  the  Earl  rejected  this 
proposal  suggests  that  Charlotte  was  responsible  for  the 
terms  of  his  reply,  which  were  remarkably  like  those  in 
which  she  had  been  wont  to  answer  the  envoys  of  Fairfax 
and  Rigby  during  the  siege  of  Lathom. 

"  I  scorn  your  profiers,  disdain  your  favour,  and  abhor 
your  treason,"  wrote  the  Earl,  "  and  am  so  far  from 
delivering  up  this  Island  to  your  advantage,  that  I  will 
keep  it  to  the  utmost  of  my  power  and  your  destruction. 
Take  this  for  your  final  answer  and  forbear  any  further 
solicitations ;     for   if  you   trouble   me  with   any   more 

1  May,  1641. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION 


157 


messages  on  this  occasion  I  will  burn  the  paper  and 
hang  the  bearer.  This  is  the  immutable  resolution  and 
shall  be  the  undoubted  practice  of  him  who  accounts 
it  his  chiefest  glory  to  be 

"  His  Majesty's  most  loyal  and  obedient  servant, 

"  Derby."  ^ 

This  virulent  defiance  having  convinced  the  Parliament 
of  the  vanity  of  all  attempts  at  negotiation,  they  then 
proceeded  by  force  of  arms  to  try  and  conquer  the  Island. 

But  for  some  time  the  Earl  had  been  collecting  and 
equipping  a  fleet,  and  with  this  ever  active  and  efficient 
little  navy,  he  continued  to  guard  the  Island  from  Round- 
head attacks,  so  that  Man  became  a  sure  and  safe  refuge 
for  Royalist  refugees,  whom,  in  spite  of  their  poverty, 
Lord  and  Lady  Derby  hospitably  entertained  at  Castle 
Rushen. 

The  story  of  these  years,  of  the  straits  to  which  the 
Countess  was  reduced,  even  in  order  to  clothe  her  waiting- 
women,  of  the  hair -breadth  escapes  of  her  husband 
and  his  retainers  from  the  guns  of  the  Parliament's 
vessels  constantly  hovering  round  the  coast,  forms  one 
of  the  most  thrilling  chapters  in  the  history  of  Charlotte 
de  La  Tremoille's  romantic  career. 

So  much  care  and  anxiety  now  had  their  natural 
effect  even  on  the  Countess's  vigorous  constitution ; 
she  fell  ill,  and  for  a  time  her  life  was  despaired  of.  So 
beset  was  she  by  dangers  and  difficulties  that,  on  her 
recovery  from  seven  weeks'  illness,  she  wrote  to  her 
sister-in-law  that  "  had  it  been  God's  will,"  she  would 
have  been  well  satisfied  to  quit  "  this  miserable  world." 
At  the  same  time  she  mourns  over  the  condition  of  her 
adopted  land,  in  which  the  sects  were  increasing  daily, 
1  "  Stanley  Papers,"  Part  III.   Vol.  I.,  cliv. 


158  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

where  the  Koran  was  printed  with  permission,  where 
it  was  common  to  deny  both  God  and  Jesus  Christ,  and  to 
beheve  only  in  the  spirit  of  the  Universe,  where  baptism 
was  made  a  joke  of,  where  a  Puritan  minister  maintained 
openly  in  church  that  there  was  no  greater  divinity  than 
himself,  and  that,  as  he  was  not  God,  therefore  God  did 
not  exist. 

In  another  letter  Lady  Derby  related  how  one  of  the 
Earl's  retainers,  returning  from  Scotland,  described  the 
burning  of  sorcerers  who  declared  that  they  were  always 
with  Cromwell  when  he  fought.  Another,  in  prison  at 
Edinburgh,  afhrmed  that  he  had  been  present  when 
Cromwell  renounced  his  baptismal  vow. 

Many  other  equally  slanderous  tales  did  the  Countess 
repeat  for  the  benefit  of  her  sister-in-law.  Perhaps  some 
of  them  were  not  without  foundation.  Everyone  knows 
that  during  that  century  hundreds  of  witches  and  wizards 
were  burnt,  especially  in  Scotland,  and  that  under  torture 
no  statement  was  too  wild  for  those  poor  wretches  to  make. 
But  the  majority  of  these  stories  were  undoubtedly  mere 
inventions,  chiefly  significant  as  showing  that  Cavaliers 
and  Puritans,  like  many  politicians  of  the  present  day,  were 
only  too  eager  to  credit  the  most  absurd  tales  told  at  the 
expense  of  their  opponents. 

After  awhile  the  Parliament,  having  failed  to  capture 
the  Isle  of  Man  by  their  war  vessels,  attempted  to  wring 
its  surrender  from  the  stalwart  Derby  by  ill-treatment 
of  his  daughters.  Catherine  and  Amelia  were  removed 
from  Knowsley  to  Liverpool,  where  they  were  lodged  in 
a  miserable,  ill- ventilated  house,  strictly  watched,  and 
not  allowed  to  go  a  few  miles  from  their  abode  without 
permission.  While  the  Parliament  thus  held  the  Earl's 
daughters  as  hostages,  they  sent  word  to  their  father  that 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  159 

if  he  would  surrender  Man  the  ladies  should  be  set  at 
liberty.  But  this  stratagem  was  no  more  successful  than 
previous  devices  had  been  in  bringing  the  proud  Earl  to 
submission  ;  and  Derby  answered  that  his  children  should 
never  be  redeemed  by  disloyalty. 

While  doubtless  approving  of  her  husband's  reply, 
Charlotte's  maternal  heart  bled  at  the  news  of  her 
daughters'  sufferings.  "  I  hear  they  are  bearing  it 
bravely,"  she  wrote  to  the  Duchess,  "  and  I  have  no 
doubt  this  is  true  of  the  eldest ;  but  my  daughter  Amelia 
is  delicate  and  timid,  and  is  undergoing  medical  treat- 
ment by  order  of  Monsieur  de  Mayerne."  ^ 

In  the  midst  of  her  fears  for  her  daughters  another 
blow  fell  upon  Lady  Derby.  She  heard  that  her  son, 
who  was  in  Holland,  was  about  to  marry  a  Mdlle.  Rupa, 
a  young  'German  lady,  high  born  but  penniless.  In 
the  present  state  of  the  family  fortunes  such  a  match 
was  not  to  be  dreamt  of.  And  to  prevent  it  the  Countess 
immediately  set  out  for  Holland,  by  way  of  Scotland. 
But  there  her  progress  was  arrested.  For,  landing  in 
Kirkcudbright,  she  found  herself  in  the  presence  of  an 
English  army  which  was  marching  to  Dunbar  ;  then  she 
discovered  that  without  a  passport  it  was  impossible  for 
her  to  continue  her  journey  ;  and,  after  a  fortnight  spent 
in  vainly  endeavouring  to  obtain  one,  she  was  reduced 
to  returning  to  Man. 

Lord  Strange  married  Mdlle.  Rupa,  and  then  attempted 
to  compensate  for  his  wife's  lack  of  fortune  by  obtaining 
from  the  Parliament  a  portion  of  his  father's  confiscated 
revenue.  With  this  object  Lord  and  Lady  Strange 
came  to  London.     Their  negotiations  with  the  Parliament, 

^  Sir  Theodore  Turquet  de  Mayerne  (1573 — 1655),  a  Genevese  who 
had  been  physician  to  Charles  I. 


i6o  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

which  Lord  Derby  described  as  "  going  over  to  the  rebels," 
drove  their  parents  into  a  fury,  and  no  doubt  confirmed 
the  Countess  in  her  opinion  that  her  eldest  son  was  but 
a  "  useless  creature." 

During  her  brief  stay  in  Scotland  Lady  Derby  had 
waited  on  Charles  11. ,  whom  she  found,  so  she  wrote 
to  the  Duchess,  behaving  with  wonderful  prudence. 
Indignantly  the  Countess  rejected  the  charge  then  being 
spread  abroad  that  her  King  was  a  Catholic.  "He  is 
as  true  a  Protestant  as  ever,"  she  wrote.  But  she  pitied 
him  in  being  obliged  to  listen  to  horrible  sermons  against 
his  father,  delivered  by  persons  whom  she  called 
"  atheists." 

Charlotte's  loyalty  must  have  been  severely  tested 
when,  a  few  months  later,  she  heard  that  on  his  coronation 
at  Scone  ^  Charles  had  subscribed  to  the  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant,  thereby  admitting  his  father's  sin,  and 
his  mother's  idolatry. 

The  King  himself  sent  word  to  Lord  Derby  that  the 
Scotch  Presbyterians  had  determined  to  make  common 
cause  with  English  Royalists,  and  to  restore  him  to  the 
throne.  These  tidings  Charlotte  and  her  husband 
received  with  great  joy.  And  henceforth  the  Earl  held 
himself  in  readiness  to  join  his  sovereign  whenever  the 
summons  should  reach  him.  Meanwhile,  throughout  the 
summer  of  165 1,  Derby  busied  himself  in  organising  his 
gallant  little  navy,  and  in  completing  the  defences  of  Man, 
so  that  in  his  absence  the  Island  might  continue  to  defy 
the  enemy. 

Finally,  in  August,  came  the  call  which  for  ever  was  to 
part  Lady  Derby  from  the  devoted  husband  who  for 
twenty-five  years  had  been  her  lover  and  friend. 

1  January,  1651. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  i6i 

For  a  while  storms  delayed  his  departure.  "  The  wind 
is  unmercifully  cruel/'  wrote  his  brave  daughter  Henrietta 
Maria.  But  it  must  have  been  with  mixed  feelings  of 
impatience  and  apprehension  that  she  and  her  mother 
listened  to  the  howling  of  the  tempest  round  the  walls  of 
Castle  Rushen. 

'*  It  begins  to  be  fair,"  she  adds  in  the  same  letter. 
And  on  August  12th,  Derby  wrote  :  "  my  little  vessel 
will  be  ready  this  tide." 

Three  days  later  he  was  in  Lancashire.  Then  began  a 
period  of  anxious  suspense  for  Lady  Derby  and  her 
children  left  behind  in  the  Isle  of  Man. 

Of  her  husband's  desperate  adventures  from  his  landing 
in  Lancashire,  until  his  execution  at  Bolton-le-Moors, 
Charlotte  knew  nothing  at  the  time.  Of  his  successful 
raising  of  the  county  for  the  King,  of  his  grievous  wound- 
ing and  defeat  at  Wigan,  of  his  escape  in  disguise  to 
Worcester,  of  his  saving  the  King's  life  after  the  battle, 
of  the  exhausted  Earl's  own  surrender  to  the  Parlia- 
mentarians, of  his  imprisonment,  trial  and  execution, 
not  one  word  penetrated  to  his  wife  in  her  island  home 
until  after  Derby  had  breathed  his  last  on  the  scaffold — 
of  all  these  sad  happenings  she  heard  nothing  until  the 
tidings  reached  her  of  her  husband's  death  at  Bolton  on 
October  15th. 

When  and  how  news  of  this  tragedy  first  came  to  the 
Countess  we  do  not  know.  But  that  some  time  or  other 
the  Earl's  trusty  chaplain,  the  Reverend  Humphrey 
Baggerley,  performed  his  lord's  behest  by  delivering  his 
letters  to  Charlotte,  and  telling  her  of  the  Earl's  last 
moments,  we  do  not  doubt.  From  Baggerley,  Lady 
Derby  must  have  learnt  that  her  lord  had  died  bravely 
for  God,  the  King,  and  the  laws,  that  shortly  before  the 

C.R.  M 


102  FROM  THEiCRUSADES 

end  he  had  spoken  of  his  honour  and  respect  for  his  lady, 
and  of  her  goodness  as  a  wife,  that  he  had  remembered 
his  eldest  daughter,  "  Mall,"  ^  and  his  sons,^  "  the  honour- 
able little  masters,"  and  that  but  a  few  hours  before  his 
execution  he  had  drunk  a  cup  of  beer  to  his  lady  and 
their  children. 

In  the  two  letters  which  the  chaplain  delivered  to  Lady 
Derby,  the  Earl  took  a  tender  pathetic  farewell  of  his 
wife  and  children.  To  his  lady,  referring  to  earlier 
letters,  which  likewise  did  not  reach  her  until  after  his 
death,  he  wrote  : 

**  My  dear  Heart,  I  have  heretofore  sent  you  comfort- 
able lines,  but,  alas  !  I  have  now  no  word  of  comfort, 
saving  to  our  last  and  best  refuge,  which  is  Almighty  God, 
to  Whose  will  we  must  submit.  ...  I  conjure  you,  my 
dearest  heart,  by  all  those  graces  which  God  hath  given 
you,  that  you  exercise  your  patience  in  this  great  and 
strange  trial.  If  harm  come  to  you,  then  I  am  dead 
indeed,  and  until  then  I  shall  live  in  you,  who  are  truly 
the  best  part  of  myself.  When  there  is  no  such  as  I  in 
being,  then  look  upon  yourself  and  my  poor  children  ; 
then  take  comfort,  and  God  wiU  bless  you."  ^ 

To  his  "poor  children,"  to  "little  Mall,  Ned  and 
Billy,"  of  whom  he  had  often  thought  and  spoken  during 
his  captivity,  the  Earl  wrote  ^  : 

"  I  remember  well  how  sad  you  were  to  part  with  me, 
but  now  I  fear  your  sorrow  will  be  greatly  increased  to  be 

1  Derby's  two  younger  daughters,  Catherine  and  Amelia,  the  Parlia- 
ment had  established  at  Chester  shortly  before  their  father  had  been 
brought  there  as  a  prisoner.  The  Stanley  girls  were  permitted  to  visit 
the  Earl  in  prison  and  to  bid  him  farewell  on  his  way  to  execution. 

2  As  soon  as  he  heard  of  his  father's  imprisonment,  the  Earl's  eldest 
son,  Lord  Strange,  had,  with  his  wife,  come  to  Chester.  And  there  he 
and  Lady  Strange  were  completely  reconciled  to  their  father. 

•  See  Seacombe,  op,  cit.,  185 — 186. 

*  Ibid.,  186—187. 


TO  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  163 

informed  that  you  can  never  see  me  more  in  this  world ; 
but  I  charge  you  all  to  strive  against  too  great  a  sorrow  : 
you  are  all  of  you  of  that  temper  that  it  would  do  you 
harm.  My  desires  and  prayers  to  God  are,  that  you  may 
have  a  happy  life.  Let  it  be  as  holy  a  life  as  you  can,  and 
as  little  sinful  as  you  can  avoid  or  prevent.  I  can  well 
now  give  you  that  counsel,  having  in  myself  at  this  time 
so  great  a  sense  of  the  vanities  of  my  life,  which  fill  my 
soul  with  sorrow  ;  yet  I  rejoice  to  remember  that  when  I 
have  blessed  God  with  pious  devotion,  it  has  been  most 
delightful  to  my  soul,  and  must  be  my  eternal  happiness. 
"  Love  the  Archdeacon,^  he  will  give  you  good  precepts. 
Obey  your  mother  with  cheerfulness  and  grieve  her  not  ; 
for  she  is  your  example,  your  nursery,  your  counsellor, 
your  all  under  God.  There  never  was,  nor  ever  can  be  a 
more  deserving  person.  I  am  called  away,  and  this  is  the 
last  I  shall  write  to  you.  The  Lord  my  God  bless  and 
guard  you  from  all  evil.  So  prays  your  father  at  this 
time,  whose  sorrow  is  inexorable  to  part  with  Mall,  Ned 
and  Billy.     Remember, 

"  Derby." 

Lord  Derby  had  anticipated  that  after  his  death  his 
gallant  wife  would  have  great  difficulty  in  maintaining 
her  defence  of  Man.  And  in  more  than  one  of  his  letters 
the  Earl  had  advised  Charlotte  to  surrender  the  Island  to 
the  Parliament  on  the  best  terms  she  could  secure  for 
herself,  her  children  and  the  inhabitants,  and  then  to 
retire  with  her  family  to  some  place  remote  from  the  war. 
Lord  Derby's  fears  proved  to  have  been  well  justified. 
But  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille's  stout  heart  could  not 
bring  itself  to  follow  her  lord's  counsel.  And  when  two 
of  the  Parliament's  colonels,  Duckenfield  and  Birch,  with 
ten  ships  of  war,  approaching  the  Island,  summoned  the 

1  Mr.  Rutter,  who  had  been  tutor  to  Lord  Strange. 

M  2 


i64  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Countess  to  surrender,  Lady  Derby,  as  in  Lathom  days, 
boldly  bade  them  defiance.^ 

Into  the  Countess's  mouth  on  this  occasion,  Scott,  in 
*'  Peveril  of  the  Peak,"  puts  just  such  words  as  she  might 
actually  have  spoken.  Referring  to  this  event  in  after 
years,  he  makes  her  say  : — 

"  I  would  have  held  .  .  .  that  island  against  the  knaves 
as  long  as  the  sea  continued  to  flow  around  it.  Till  the 
shoals  which  surround  it  had  become  safe  anchorage,  till 
its  precipices  had  melted  beneath  the  sunshine,  till  of  all 
its  strong  abodes  and  castles  not  one  stone  remained  upon 
another,  would  I  have  defended  against  these  villainous 
hypocritical  rebels  my  dear  husband's  hereditary 
dominions." 

Vain  were  all  Lady  Derby's  courage  and  heroism. 
The  Island  was  undermined  by  treason.  Treachery  did 
what  force  could  never  have  accomplished.  The  Governor 
of  Man,  William  Christian,  in  whom  the  late  Earl  had 
placed  implicit  confidence,  was,  in  league  with  the  enemy. 
Led  by  Christian,  the  very  night  after  the  arrival  of 
the  Parliament's  ships,  the  Manxmen  rose  in  a  body, 
seized  Castle  Rushen,  where  Lady  Derby  was  then 
residing,  and  prepared  to  hand  the  whole  island  over  to 
the  enemy. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  other  fortress  of  Man,  in  Peel  Castle, 
which  at  high  tide  formed  an  island  of  itself,  there  still 
held  out  a  brave  body  of  men  commanded  by  a  gallant 
royalist.  Sir  Philip  Musgrave.  The  Parliamentarians,  in 
negotiating  with  the  captive  Countess,  offered  her  life, 
liberty,  and  all  her  goods  if  she  would  abandon  this  little 
band  of  defenders  unconditionally  into  their  hands.     But 

1  It  is  doubtful  whether  at  that  time  Lady  Derby  had  received  her 
husband's  letters.  It  may  have  been  those  Parliamentarian  generals 
who  sent  her  news  of  the  Earl's  death. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  165 

those  who  made  such  a  proposal  Httle  knew  the  loyalty 
of  a  La  Tremoille.  Their  offer  Lady  Derby  rejected  with 
the  utmost  scorn,  replying  that  she  preferred  to  remain  a 
prisoner  rather  than  abandon  a  single  man  who  had  been 
faithful  to  her.  So  with  the  greater  part  of  her  personal 
property  in  the  Island,  the  Countess  purchased  the  lives 
of  Musgrave  and  his  men.^  Out  of  all  her  goods,  400 
crowns  worth  of  silver  plate  was  allowed  her,  just  sufficient 
to  pay  for  the  passage  to  England  of  herself  and  her 
children. 

Under  Musgrave's  escort,  Lady  Derby  and  her  family, 
after  a  stormy  crossing,  landed  at  Beaumaris.  There  they 
bade  farewell  to  their  brave  comrade  ;  Sir  Philip  took  his 
way  to  the  north,  while  the  Countess  and  her  children,  we 
presume,  journeyed  to  London.  For  it  was  there  that  in 
the  following  March,  Lady  Derby  resumed  her  corre- 
spondence with  her  sister-in-law,  in  a  letter  ^  from  which 
we  obtain  our  only  reliable  information  concerning  her 
departure  from  Man. 

During  the  eight  years  between  her  arrival  in  England 
and  the  King's  restoration.  Lady  Derby  was  chiefly 
concerned  in  endeavouring  to  rescue  from  Parliamen- 
tarian confiscators  the  remnants  of  her  own  and  her 
husband's  fortune,  in  marrying  her  daughters,  and  in 
providing  for  the  advancement  of  her  two  younger  sons. 

After  three  years  she  succeeded  in  recovering  her  own 
dowry  and  the  estate  of  Knowsley,  whither  she  retired, 
glad  to  leave  London,  where  she  found  living  too  expensive 
for  her  very  limited  resources. 

The  year  after  the  surrender  of  Man,   Lady  Derby 

^  This  agreement  was  signed  on  November  nth,  1651. 

2  This  letter  contradicts  the  statement  made  by  more  than  one 
authority  that  for  several  months  after  the  Island's  surrender  the 
Countess  was  kept  a  prisoner  in  Man. 


i66  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

married  her  second  daughter,  Catherine,  to  Henry 
Pierrepont,  Marquis  of  Dorchester,  a  middle-aged  widower, 
very  rich,  but  one  of  the  most  eccentric  persons  of  his 
time.  Dorchester,  by  adopting  the  medical  profession, 
had  scandalised  the  nobility  and  terrified  all  his  friends 
and  relatives  for  whom  he  insisted  on  prescribing.  By 
the  time  Catherine  Stanley  married  him  he  was  said  to 
have  already  killed  his  daughter,  his  coachman,  and  five 
other  patients.  In  the  end  he  himself  is  said  to  have  died 
of  his  physic.  But  unfortunately  for  Catherine  that 
Nemesis  did  not  overtake  him  until  she  had  been  ten 
years  in  her  grave.  Yet  a  naturally  strong  constitution 
had  enabled  her  long  to  resist  her  husband's  medica- 
ments, and,  victimised  by  his  extravagant  whims  and 
irascible  disposition,  to  live  through  twenty-seven  years 
of  married  misery. 

Lady  Derby,  who  at  first  exulted  in  procuring  so 
wealthy  a  husband  for  her  daughter,  only  three  months 
after  the  wedding,  realised  that  she  had  made  a  hideous 
mistake.  Therefore  in  mating  her  two  other  daughters 
she  avoided  eccentricities.  Henrietta  Maria  and  Amelia 
were  lucky  in  being  united  to  quite  commonplace  persons. 
Henrietta's  spouse,  William  Wentworth,  second  son  of  the 
famous  Earl  of  Strafford,  inherited  none  of  his  father's 
gifts  and  probably  proved  a  placid  husband. 

Amelia,  a  clever  and  attractive  brunette,  "  with  an 
equal  and  patient  temper,"  in  her  marriage  with  John, 
the  second  earl  and  first  Marquis  of  AthoU,  appears  to 
have  been  the  most  fortunate  of  the  sisters.  Her  wedding, 
which  took  place  on  May  5th,  1659,  rendered  her,  as  she 
wrote,  "  the  happiest  creature  alive,"  and  the  happiness 
seems  to  have  endured.  She  bore  her  husband  three 
sons,  the  eldest  of  whom,  John,  became  first  Duke  of 


TO   THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  167 

AthoU.      The    Marquis    died    in    1703.      His    wife   was 
living  in  1691,  but  the  date  of  her  death  is  uncertain. 

While  Lady  Derby  was  busy  marrying  her  daughters, 
she  was  sending  her  two  youngest  sons  abroad.  Edward, 
her  second  son,  she  had  despatched,  in  1654,  to  his  aunt, 
the  Duchess,  enjoining  on  him  to  show  her  the  same 
affection,  respect  and  obedience  as  he  had  rendered  to  his 
mother.  "  He  has  some  knowledge  of  mathematics, 
painting  and  surveying,"  she  wrote.  "  He  is  gentle,  and 
of  a  good  disposition,  brave,  but  without  pride,  a  very 
common  vice  of  his  nation."  That  lack  of  pride  or  that 
dignified  modesty  has  ever  been  one  of  the  finest 
characteristics  of  the  typical  English  country  gentleman, 
and  it  was  from  his  father  that  Edward  Stanley  had 
inherited  it. 

In  1657,  William  Stanley  joined  his  brother  in  France. 
"  Poor  children,"  wrote  their  mother,  "  they  must  needs 
seek  their  fortunes  abroad,  since  they  have  nothing  to 
hope  for  from  the  land  of  their  birth." 

From  her  eldest  son,  Charles,  now  Lord  Derby,  Char- 
lotte continued  estranged.  Not  even  his  devotion  to  his 
father  in  his  imprisonment  could  win  his  mother's 
forgiveness.  Charles  is  said  to  have  ridden  from  Chester 
to  London  and  back  in  twenty-four  hours,  in  order  to 
petition  Parliament  to  annul  the  capital  sentence  passed 
by  court-martial  on  his  father.  But  nothing  could  make 
Charlotte  forget  that  her  first-born  had  run  away^from 
home,  had  wedded  a  wife  without  a  dowry,  and  had 
negotiated  with  the  ParHament.  "  Worse  than  the 
prodigal  son,"  she  calls  him.  And  to  her  daughter-in-law 
she  was  equally  unjust.  "  There  never  was  so  malignant 
a  nature  as  that  woman's,  who  has  nothing  good  or 
pleasant  about  her,"  she  wrote. 


i68  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Despite  these  hard  words,  however,  motherly  love  was 
not  utterly  extinguished  in  Charlotte's  heart  ;  and  the 
approach  of  danger  fanned  that  spark  into  a  flame. 

In  the  Royalist  rising  which  took  place  in  Lancashire 
in  1659,  Lord  Derby,  having  been  defeated  at  Nantwich, 
was  taken  prisoner.  His  wife  joined  him  in  prison. 
And  then  Charlotte  welcomed  to  her  home  at  Knowsley 
his  nine  little  children,  one  of  whom  was  an  infant  but  a 
few  weeks  old.  At  the  same  time,  the  Countess  wrote  to 
her  sister-in-law  entreating  her  to  procure  the  inter- 
vention of  the  French  ambassador  in  England,  Monsieur 
de  Bordeaux,  on  her  nephew's  behalf.  Apparently  this 
intervention  took  place  and  succeeded  ;  for  Derby,  after 
having  been  imprisoned  first  at  Shrewsbury,  and  then  in 
the  Tower  of  London,  was  set  at  liberty. 

No  sooner  was  her  son  out  of  danger  than  Charlotte's 
bitterness  against  him  returned.  She  accused  him  of 
cheating  her  out  of  a  share  in  the  revenues  of  the  Isle  of 
Man,  which  she  said  his  father  had  assigned  to  her  for 
twenty-one  years. 

As  to  the  merits  of  this  quarrel  we  cannot  attempt  to 
judge.  But  the  vindictiveness  with  which  the  Countess 
pursued  it  is  revealed  in  her  letters.  Another  document 
shows  her  inconsistency  :  in  her  will,  dated  1654,  while 
''  trusting  in  Jesus  to  forgive  her  own  misdeeds,"  she 
refuses  to  pardon  her  son,  and  cuts  him  off  with  £5. 

We  must  not,  however,  be  too  hard  on  Charlotte  by 
demanding  from  her  virtues  not  in  accordance  with  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  or  with  her  own  upbringing.  The 
austere  Calvinist  faith  in  which  she  had  been  nurtured, 
encouraged  an  unforgiving  disposition.  Moreover,  the 
Countess,  like  the  rest  of  us,  suffered  from  the  vices  of  her 
virtues  ;  and  it  was  the  same  stem  resolution  which  had 


TO  THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  169 

enabled  her  to  hold  Lathom  against  the  Parliamentarians, 
that  now  rendered  her  implacable  in  resentment.  We 
may  also  suspect  that  Charlotte  and  her  eldest  son  were 
too  much  alike  in  disposition  to  have  ever  been  excellent 
friends.  Charles  Stanley  had  all  the  La  Tremoille 
characteristics ;  he,  unlike  his  brother  Edward,  was 
proud,  and  at  the  same  time,  impulsive,  resolute  and 
vigorous. 

Meanwhile,  despite  the  failure  of  the  Lancashire  rising. 
Royalist  feeling  was  growing  throughout  the  country, 
and  the  Republican  party  was  daily  becoming  more 
disintegrated.  Lady  Derby  was  now  filled  with  hope, 
especially  when  General  Monk  set  out  from  Scotland  on 
his  famous  march  to  London. 

"  General  Monk  has  seized  Berwick  .  .  .  where  he  is 
now  negotiating  some  kind  of  treaty  with  Lambert," 
wrote  Charlotte.  "  God  in  His  goodness  will  bring  out 
order  from  disorder.*' 

And  her  hopes  were  not  disappointed.  Events  moved 
rapidly.  On  February  nth,  1660,  Monk  led  his  troops 
into  London.  On  May  7th,  Lady  Derby  could  write  that 
Parliament  had  "  done  justice  and  recognised  his  Majesty." 
"It  is  true  that  this  passes  human  wisdom,"  she  ex- 
claimed ;  "  it  is  beyond  our  understanding,  and  can  never 
be  enough  admired." 

By  this  time  the  Countess's  two  eldest  sons  had  taken 
their  places  in  Parliament,  the  Earl  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
his  brother  William  in  the  Commons,  but  not  without 
considerable  opposition.  The  youngest,  Edward  Stanley, 
was  abroad  with  the  King,  standing  high  in  his  Sovereign's 
favour.  In  such  stirring  times  the  Countess  could  no 
longer  remain  in  exile  at  Knowsley.  If  only  for  her 
children's  interests,  she  must  needs  come  to  London.     It 


170  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

was  difficult,  however,  for  her  to  afford  the  journey  and 
the  expense  of  hving  in  the  capital.  But,  summoning  all 
her  resources,  in  May  she  arrived  in  town. 

As  she  had  anticipated,  after  years  of  country  life,  the 
sight  of  the  great  world  and  its  rejoicings  filled  her  with 
mingled  thoughts.  But  she  would  not  permit  the  con- 
templation of  her  own  misfortunes  to  cloud  her  joy  at  her 
Sovereign's  restoration.  '*  We  may  well  say  God  hath 
done  wonders,"  she  wrote,  "  for  which  may  His  name  be 
for  ever  blessed.'' 

From  the  King,  both  for  herself  and  her  children.  Lady 
Derby  hoped  much.  Alas  !  those  hopes  were  destined  to 
disappointment.  Had  her  loyalty  permitted,  the  Countess 
at  the  close  of  her  life  might  have  echoed  the  Psalmist's 
cry:  "  Put  not  your  trust  in  princes  .  .  .  in  whom  there 
is  no  help."  Charles  no  doubt  found  it  impossible  to 
gratify  all  those  who  looked  to  him  for  the  reward  of  past 
services.  Yet  one  would  have  thought  that  the  defender 
of  Lathom,  and  the  widow  of  one  who  had  died  in  his 
cause,  had  a  first  claim  upon  his  gratitude. 

True,  the  King  was  lavish  in  his  promises,  true  he  was 
all  kindness,  courtesy  and  sympathy  to  the  widow, 
visiting  her  unceremoniously  when  she  was  ill,  and 
winning  her  heart,  so  that  she  described  him  as  "  the 
most  charming  prince  in  the  world."  Yet  this  Prince 
Charming,  while  rewarding  others  who  had  served  him 
less  faithfully,  did  nothing  but  dangle  before  Charlotte's 
aspiring  gaze  the  uncertain  hope  that  if  the  Queen  bore 
him  children.  Lady  Derby  should  be  their  governess. 

For  Lady  Derby's  sons  the  King  did  practically 
nothing.  All  that  William  Stanley  received  was  a 
cornetcy  in  the  Guards.  The  King's  brother,  the  Duke  of 
York,  showed  a  truer  appreciation  of  the  services  rendered 


TO   THE   FRENCH   REVOLUTION  171 

by  this  family  to  the  royal  cause  by  appointing  Edward 
Stanley  to  be  first  and  sole  gentleman  of  his  bedchamber. 
Meanwhile  the  "  worse  than  prodigal  son/'  possessed  by 
his  mother's  vindictiveness,  had  fallen  into  disgrace  by  his 
summary  execution  of  the  traitor,  William  Christian,  thus 
violating  the  Act  of  Indemnity,  and  laying  himself  open 
to  a  charge  of  murder.  From  this  charge  Lord  Derby 
was  fortunate  in  escaping  with  no  heavier  penalty  than 
the  confiscation  of  part  of  his  estates  and  banishment 
from  court. 

These  bitter  disappointments,  however,  Charlotte  in 
that  glorious  year  of  the  Restoration  did  not  foresee. 
Then  in  the  fulness  of  hope  she  could  participate  in 
royalist  rejoicing.  And  in  an  unusually  cheerful  spirit 
in  this  and  following  years,  she  wrote  to  her  sister-in-law 
of  the  gay  doings  at  court  and  in  town,  of  the  coronation, 
of  the  Queen-Dowager's  return,  of  the  marriage  of  the 
King  and  the  Duke  of  York,  also,  alas ! — and  with  no  less 
satisfaction — of  those  dire  deeds  of  revenge  which  sullied 
the  King's  return,  of  that  black  day,  January  30th,  1661, 
the  twelfth  anniversary  of  Charles  I.'s  death,  when  the 
exhumed  corpses  of  Cromwell,  Ireton  and  Bradlaugh 
were  dragged  on  hurdles  through  London  streets,  hanged 
at  Tyburn  gate,  and  buried  beneath  it. 

Towards  the  end  of  her  life.  Lady  Derby  found  it  im- 
possible to  meet  the  expenses  involved  by  residence  in 
London.  She  was  in  debt ;  tradesmen  were  beginning  to 
dun  her,  and  even  to  refuse  to  supply  her  with  necessaries. 
Therefore,  she  retired  to  Knowsley  ;  and  there  during  the 
severe  winter  of  1662-3  she  fell  ill.  Although  from  that 
sickness  she  recovered,  another  followed ;  and  on 
March  31st,  1664,  she  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-five. 

In  her  will  she  had  pathetically  begged  "to  be  buried 


172  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

near  her  dear  lord  and  husband  in  the  parish  church  at 
Ormskirk  in  Lancashire,  "if  it  may  be  without  un- 
necessary expense."  Possibly  the  expense  was  deemed 
unnecessary.  At  any  rate,  this  testamentary  request  was 
ignored  until  nine  years  after  Charlotte's  death.  Then, 
and  not  till  then,  were  her  remains  interred  in  Ormskirk 
Church,  and  after  her  name  in  the  parish  register  were 
inscribed  the  words  :  post  funera  virtus. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION     173 


CHAPTER  Vn 

HENRY  CHARLES  DE  LA  TREMOILLE,  A  HERO  OF  THE  FRONDE. 

1620 — 1672 

The  heads  of  the  La  Tremoille  family  may  be  classed  in 
two  categories,  those  who  played  a  prominent  part  in  war 
and  in  national  affairs,  and  those  who  lived  quietly  the 
lives  of  country  gentlemen. 

To  the  second  category,  in  the  last  part  of  his  Hfe, 
belongs  Lady  Derby's  eldest  brother  Henry,  Due  de 
Thouars.  Having  served  his  King  in  many  campaigns, 
Henry,  at  the  age  of  forty-five,  on  the  death  of  Louis  XHL, 
just  at  the  time  when  across  the  channel  his  sister  was 
holding  at  bay  the  Parliamentarian  army,  retired  from 
pubhc  affairs.  On  his  estates  in  Poitou  and  Brittany  he 
passed  the  remainder  of  his  days,  keeping  aloof  alike  from 
the  troubles  of  Louis  XIV. 's  long  minority,  and  from  the 
splendour  of  his  personal  rule.  In  the  quietude  of  this 
rural  existence  the  Duke's  life  was  prolonged  to  what  was 
then  the  extremely  advanced  age  of  seventy-six.  Out- 
living his  wife  and  eldest  son,  he  died  in  1674. 

But  during  this  long  retirement,  Henry  by  no  means 
lost  interest  in  pubhc  affairs.  And  in  1658,  on  the  death 
of  Oliver  Cromwell,  we  find  him  writing^  to  the  exiled 
Queen  of  England,  Henrietta  Maria,  a  letter  permeated 
not  only  with  ardent  monarchism,  but  with  that  religious 

1  The  letter  dated  October  ist,  1658,  appears  in  the  "  Registre  de 
Correspondance  et  Biographie  du  Due  Henry  de  La  Tremoille,"  par 
Hugues  Imbert  (Poitiers,  1867),  53. 


174  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

bitterness  which  too  often  characterises  those  who  have 
changed  their  faith. ^  *'  Madame/'  he  wrote,  "  my 
isolation  from  court  and  from  society  hath  alone  deferred 
the  performance  of  my  duty  in  giving  expression  to  my 
feelings  on  the  death  of  the  common  enemy  of  princes,  of 
religion,  and  of  your  Majesty.  The  public  and  my  own 
personal  joy  [at  this  event]  is  augmented  and  intensified 
by  the  desire  and  the  hope  to  behold  the  King,  your  Son, 
established  upon  the  august  throne  of  an  empire  once  so 
prosperous,  but  now  to  the  horrible  scandal  of  all  Christen- 
dom, ruined  by  heresy,  impiety  and  rebellion.  We  hoped 
from  divine  justice  a  chastisement  which  it  seems  pleased 
to  reserve  for  another  life,  possibly  because  in  this  one 
there  exists  no  punishment  proportionate  to  crimes 
unparalleled  throughout  all  time." 

The  Duke's  change  of  religion  must  have  caused 
considerable  dissension  in  the  ducal  household,  where  the 
Duchess,  the  stern  Marie  de  la  Tour,  remained  true  to 
Protestantism,  and  where  the  children,  two  of  them,^ 
although  the  Duke  had  insisted  on  their  all  being  admitted 
with  him  into  the  Catholic  Church,  afterwards  reverted  to 
their  mother's  faith. 

By  Marie  de  la  Tour,  Henry  had  five  children  :  Henry 
Charles,  Prince  de  Tarente  ;  Louis  Maurice,  Comte  de 
Laval,  who  served  with  the  Due  de  Longueville  in  his 
Italian  campaigns  ;  Armand  Charles  and  Elizabeth,  who 
both  died  in  childhood;  and  Marie  Charlotte,  who  at 
Paris  on  July  i8th,  1662,  married  Bernard  of  Saxe 
Weimar,  son  of  the  Duke  of  Saxe  Weimar  ;  she  became  a 
widow  in  1678,  and  died  of  apoplexy  in  1682.^ 

1  For  the  Duke's  abjuration  of  the  Protestant  religion,  see  ante, 
132. 

2  The  Prince  de  Tarente  and  his  sister,  Marie  Charlotte. 

*  In  "  La  Galerie  des  Portraits  de  Mdlle.  de  Montpensier  "  (see  ed. 
Barth^lemy,  50 — 54),  Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille  in  terms  by  no  means 


HENRYDELATREMOfLLlT,  -  |tllMj:^f^^^  1%/  ucnJDucdeThounrs,PairdeFravce, 
,  Vruice  deVarente  erdpTnliTiotuLCointedh  ,  ^W^'\r^^p/)^LaualVillefmucheMoutJon:rnillehoui^^ 
\'benon,Quynes etlonuellesMtcomte de'Ren  '  \,^J^^^Uies,et deBnis.Rnrou  deVitre'Didone.Bcrric. 
\  PtMniileon.  Ma  njuis  dEfpinay^fCheuaht-r^-  *,  '  '  '  ^     -^de:  ordrcs  dit  Roy  Els  de  Claude  dejaTiriiiodk 

l^iu  dei:'houa>y.VdirdeFmncejet  de  CharhneBi  alatin'iie  de  NaJlaiifiUt'  dcliiuUlnnvtePriucr  d'Omtiqc.et- 
dechadottc dpBonrbon  Monfpm/t'er.nnfqtiitn  Thoimrj    en  iSp^,  Ilrecncillit-en  ldnnect6oj  Injttcce- 

jjion  del  a  rv  aijcn  d  cLauah  qiii  par  reprafentaon  de  Charlotte  d/KrnqcnVrinccfje  deTliranteJn  bii^nWin- 
Ma  rendu  feiil  etVriiquphpritierdr  Frederic  dArajjon  Roy  del^aplej  et d'Anne  dejaiioyejou  cfpoiif-. 
(  Tdle d'Ani?T)uc dp  Jnuoyp et  dlolaud   de  France; II efponja  en  t6ip Marie  clclaTourD'AuueranpJiUc dr 
[  llenrydclnTcurDiic  cte Butllon.VriuceSotitieratn  deJeaan.el- dEliT^het  de NaJJau . 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  175 

It  was  to  his  eldest  son,  Charles,  famous  in  history  as  the 
Prince  de  Tarente,  that  the  Duke  looked  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  family  tradition  of  prowess  in  war  and 
activity  in  national  affairs.  And  in  1656,  in  order  to 
help  him  to  maintain  this  position,  Henry,  Hke  a  latter- 
day  King  Lear,  actually  ceded  to  his  son  the  duchy  of 
Thouars  with  its  title,  chateau,  lands,  and  all  other 
appurtenances.  Charles  in  his  father's  stead  became  a 
peer  of  France,  and  took  his  place  in  the  Paris  Parlement. 
But  such  fame  had  he  won  as  Prince  de  Tarente  that  until 
the  day  of  his  death,  in  1672,  he  was  known  by  no  other 
title. 

For  the  Prince  de  Tarente's  eventful  career  we  are 
fortunate  in  possessing  an  excellent  authority  in  the 
shape  of  his  own  Memoirs,^  told  in  his  own  words  for 
the  benefit  of  his  children. 

Of  this  valuable  little  book,  as  far  as  we  can  ascertain, 
there  exists  only  one  edition,  that  printed  at  Liege  in 
1767.  But  the  Due  de  La  Tremoille  possesses  two 
manuscripts  of  the  work  enriched  with  corrections  and 
additions.  It  is  mainly  from  this  narrative  that  the 
following  story  of  the  Prince's  life  is  derived. 

Born  at  Thouars  on  December  17th,  1620,  in  his 
earliest  years  Charles  was  extremely  delicate.  He  was 
about  seven  years  old  when  his  father  became  a  Catholic  ; 
and  then  the  boy's  education  was  confided  to  a  Jesuit 
priest,  who  taught  him,  in  addition  to  mathematics  and 
drawing,  to  speak  Latin  with  as  great  facility  as  his 
mother  tongue.     Later,  Charles  was  sent  to  the  Academy 

flattering   gives   a   description   of  her   own   character   and   personal 
appearance. 

^  "  Memoires  de  Henri  Charies  de  La  Tremoille,  Prince  de  Tarente," 
a  Li^ge,  chez  J.  F.  Bassompierre,  Imprimeur  de  son  Altesse  et  Librairie, 
1767. 


176  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

of  one  Sieur  Benjamin,  where  he  had  for  playmate  and 
friend  his  cousin  the  Due  d'Enghien,^  who,  as  the  great 
Conde,  was  to  exercise  a  dominant  and  disastrous  influence 
over  his  career. 

His  schooldays  ended,  Charles  returned  to  Thouars. 
There  he  found  time  hang  heavily  on  his  hands.  The 
humdrum  life  of  a  country  gentleman  was  not  to  the 
taste  of  this  aspiring  youth.  The  blood  of  his  warrior 
ancestors  boiled  in  his  veins,  and  he  longed  to  go  forth 
and  win  his  spurs  in  the  field  of  war.  The  example  of  his 
great  forbear,  Louis  de  La  Tremoille,  the  "  Knight 
without  Reproach,"  fired  his  ambition.  And  we  are  not 
surprised  to  find  him  following  in  Louis'  footsteps  and 
running  away  from  home.^  But  Charles's  escapade  met 
with  better  success  than  Louis',  for  while  the  fifteenth 
century  truant  had  been  ignominiously  caught  and 
brought  home,  his  descendant  succeeded  in  reaching 
Dieppe  and  embarking  on  a  boat  which  carried  him  to 
England.  In  after  years.  La  Tremoille  confessed  to  his 
children,  that  his  success  in  getting  away  was  largely  due 
to  his  Protestant  mother,  who,  eager  to  remove  her  son 
from  his  father's  Catholic  influence,  had  connived  at  his 
flight.  But  England  was  not  the  destination  on  which 
the  truant  had  set  his  heart.  His  ambition  was  to  trail 
a  pike  in  the  Low  Countries,  that  great  school  of  war 
whither  his  great-uncle,^  the  Stadtholder,  Frederick, 
Henry  of  Nassau,  by  his  brilliant  campaigns  against  the 
Spaniards,  was  attracting  all  the  gallant  youth  of  Europe. 

The  tempests  of  the  Channel  and  the  qualms  of  sea- 
sickness, however,  so  cooled  the  Prince's  ardour  that  by 

.  1  The  grandson  of  Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille,  Princesse  de  Cond6. 
2  See  ante,  53. 

^  Frederick  Henry  was  the  son  of  William  the  Silent,  and  the 
brother  of  Charlotte  Brabantine,  wife  of  Claude  de  La  Tremoille,  who 
was  our  hero's  grandmother. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  177 

the  time  his  captain  landed  him  at  a  Devonshire  sea-port 
he  had  for  the  moment  lost  all  taste  for  adventure  ;  and 
gladly  did  he  accept  his  Aunt  and  Uncle  Derby's  invitation 
to  spend  two  months  with  them  in  London. 

During  this  time  La  Tremoille's  diplomatic  mother  was 
winning  her  husband's  pardon  for  their  son,  and  obtaining 
his  consent  to  Charles's  design  of  joining  his  great  kinsman 
in  the  Netherlands.  So  completely  successful  was  her 
intercession,  that  the  Duke  promised  Charles  an  allowance 
of  30,000  livres  per  annum,  to  which  amount  Marie  de  la 
Tour,  from  her  private  purse,  added  a  considerable  sum. 

It  was  during  his  stay  in  England  that  the  Prince 
rejoiced  his  mother's  heart  by  resolving  to  return  to  the 
Reformed  faith,  a  resolution  to  which  he  gave  effect 
immediately  on  his  arrival  at  the  Hague. 

In  that  year,  1639,  the  Dutch  court  was  busy  with 
negotiations  for  the  marriage  of  the  Stadtholder's  son, 
Prince  William,  with  the  English  Princess  Mary,  eldest 
daughter  of  Charles  I.  The  marriage  was  arranged  in  the 
following  year,  and  La  Tremoille  was  invited  to  accompany 
the  bridegroom,  who  was  but  a  boy  of  sixteen,  to  his 
wedding  in  London. 

But  on  the  eve  of  departure  Charles  met  with  an 
adventure  which  came  near  to  upsetting  his  English 
visit. 

This  youth  of  twenty  had  employed  his  time  at  the 
Dutch  court  by  falling  in  love  with  his  cousin,  Louisa 
Henrietta,  the  Stadtholder's  daughter.  And  when  the 
royal  party  found  itself  hindered  from  starting  and 
windbound  in  Brill  harbour,  our  young  adventurer 
profited  by  the  delay  to  slip  back  to  the  Hague  and  bid 
his  dear  cousin  one  more  farewell.  Then  on  the  morrow, 
fearing  lest  the  Prince  might  have  set  forth  without  him, 

C.R.  N 


178  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

he  returned  with  all  possible  speed  to  the  coast,  and,  in  a 
little  boat,  with  one  sailor  and  an  officer  of  his  suite,  set 
out  for  Brill.  Five  miles  from  land,  however,  as  ill  luck 
would  have  it,  they  were  caught  in  a  squall.  The  seaman 
promptly  lost  his  head,  while  the  landsmen  fell  a-pray- 
ing.  From  these  pious  exercises  they  were  speedily 
diverted  by  the  mariner  joining  them.  This  La  Tremoille 
could  not  endure.  It  was  all  very  well  for  landlubbers  to 
pray,  but  from  a  sailor  his  passengers  expected  more 
active  measures.  So,  in  the  most  violent  Flemish  he 
could  command,  Charles  rounded  on  the  praying  sailor, 
explaining  to  him  forcibly,  that  faith  without  works  is 
dead.  The  works  which  followed  this  adjuration,  how- 
ever, bid  fair  to  be  the  death  of  these  seafarers  :  for  with 
La  Tremoille  at  the  helm  and  the  boatman  obeying  his 
orders  by  sailing  in  the  teeth  of  the  storm,  things  went 
from  bad  to  worse  :  first  their  mast  was  shattered,  then 
they  themselves  were  plunged  up  to  their  necks  in  water, 
and  finally  the  barque  capsized.  Afraid  lest  the  land  was 
too  far  away  for  them  to  swim  to,  they  clung  to  their  over- 
turned craft,  and  just  managed  to  keep  afloat  until  the 
tempest  abated  and  their  boat  righted  herself.  Eventu- 
ally, after  a  voyage  of  three  hours,  which  ought  not  to 
have  lasted  more  than  forty-five  minutes,  they  reached 
Brill  in  time  to  join  the  Prince  and  his  escort. 

Overtaken  by  no  further  adventure  and  escorted  by  the 
Dutch  fleet,  the  royal  party  crossed  the  sea  and  sailed  up 
the  Thames  to  Gravesend. 

Here  they  were  met  by  the  Ambassadors  from  the  Low 
Countries,  and  by  royal  coaches  which  conveyed  them  to 
Whitehall,  where  Prince  William,  and — we  may  presume 
— La  Tremoille  with  him,  was  presented  to  their  Majesties. 
Thence,    after   visiting   the   Princes   and   Princesses   at 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  179 

Somerset  House,  they  proceeded  to  their  own  quarters 
near  by,  in  that  curious  assemblage  of  detached  buildings 
known  as  Arundel  House.  Despite  its  lack  of  archi- 
tectural beauty,  Arundel  House,  filled  as  it  was  with 
priceless  works  of  art,  had  for  years  been  deemed  a  worthy 
residence  for  distinguished  foreign  visitors  to  London. 
Sully  had  stayed  there  when  he  was  French  Ambassador 
in  the  reign  of  James  L 

At  this  point  La  Tremoille's  Memoirs  are  disappointing. 
Of  the  royal  wedding  there  was  little  to  tell,  for  it  was 
celebrated  quietly  on  May  2nd,  1641,  on  the  very  day 
when  King  Charles  was  making  one  of  his  attempts  to 
gain  military  control  over  the  Tower  of  London  ;  and  we 
may  pardon  our  author  if  of  the  unceremonious  espousal 
at  Whitehall  of  the  little  girl  of  ten  by  the  boy  of  sixteen 
he  has  not  a  word  to  say.  But  of  the  impression  made 
upon  the  young  foreigner's  mind  by  the  condition  of 
England  at  that  time,  of  an  England  on  the  eve  of  civil 
war,  of  an  England  in  which  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
lay  impeached  on  a  charge  of  high  treason  in  the  Tower, 
and  in  which  the  King's  first  minister  was  but  a  few  days 
later  to  lose  his  head,  we  might  have  expected  to  have 
been  given  some  idea.  At  that  time  such  subjects, 
however,  did  not  interest  our  Memoirist.  War  and 
women  were  the  matters  of  most  moment  to  him  then, 
and  war  for  him,  as  for  many  another  in  that  day,  too 
often  meant  mere  revenge  for  private  wrongs. 

So  during  his  English  visit  he  was  completely  absorbed 
with  what  he  proudly  describes  as  his  "  first  affair  of 
honour  since  he  came  into  the  world."  It  arose  out  of 
a  dispute  with  Count  Henry  of  Nassau,  who  wished  to 
occupy  a  dressing-room  which  had  been  assigned  to  La 
Tremoille.     This  wonderful  duel,  much  to  the  would-be 

N  2 


i8o  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

warrior's  chagrin,  never  took  place,  for  the  young  Prince 
of  Orange  bound  him  over  to  keep  the  peace  while  in 
England,  and  on  his  return  to  Holland  the  Stadtholder 
forbade  him  to  fight. 

From  personal  affairs  of  honour  La  Tremoille  was  soon 
diverted  by  the  wider  operations  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 
In  the  summer  of  1641,  Frederick  Henry  appointed  him 
colonel  of  a  cavalry  regiment  ;  and  in  this  capacity  La 
Tremoille,  so  he  tells  us,  distinguished  himself  for  vigour 
and  valour,  remaining  four  consecutive  nights  on  horse- 
back to  avoid  a  surprise  by  the  enemy.  But  this  excess 
of  youthful  ardour  resulted  in  an  illness  which  before  the 
close  of  the  campaign  compelled  the  young  colonel  to 
withdraw  from  action. 

By  the  next  year  he  was  well  enough  to  take  the  field 
again.  And  now  "  the  vivacity  of  his  youth,"  as  he  calls 
it,  involved  him  in  a  second  affair  of  honour,  which 
proved  more  serious  than  the  first.  Encamped  before 
Rhimbergue,  he  fought  a  duel  with  Prince  Radzivill,^  one 
of  Elizabeth  Stuart's  numerous  admirers.  His  antagonist 
wounded  him  so  severely  in  the  right  arm,  four  inches 
above  the  wrist,  that  the  limb  was  nearly  severed.^ 

"  Straightway,"  writes  Tarente,  "  my  sword  flew  out  of 
my  hand.  I  fell,  and  Prince  Radzivill's  people  raised  me 
and  tied  up  my  arm  in  order  to  stop  the  flow  of  blood,  for 
I  was  bleeding  profusely.  A  messenger  hastened  to 
Rhimbergue  for  a  surgeon;  and  came  back  with  one  called 
Le  Sage,  who  saved  my  life  by  his  diligence.  In  order  to 
stanch  the  blood  he  was  obliged  to  bind  several  veins 
(sic)  and  arteries,  which  operation  gave  me  intense  pain. 
I  was  carried  to  Rhimbergue  ;  and  there  Le  Sage,  having 

1  There  were  several  princes  of  that  name  who  distinguished  them- 
selves in  this  century.  This  was  probably  Janussius  II.,  Grand 
Chamberlain  of  Lithuania.     See  Moreri's  Dictionary,  under  Eadzivill 

2  "  M^moires,"  19. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  i8i 

permitted  me  to  rest  for  an  hour,  effected  other  Hgatures, 
which  caused  me  even  worse  pain  than  the  first.  Yet, 
notwithstanding  all  that  I  had  suffered,  the  following 
night  I  slept  soundly,  and  three  weeks  later  a  party  of 
2,000  horse  having  approached  our  quarters,  I  mounted 
and  charged  them." 

But  an  injury  such  as  La  Tremoille  describes  could  not 
be  cured  in  three  weeks,  and  a  year  later  the  wound  was 
still  troubhng  him.  Then,  when  the  campaign  of  1643 
was  over,  he  returned  to  France  to  take  the  waters  of 
Barege  in  order  to  strengthen  his  arm  ;  and,  after  having 
greatly  benefited  from  a  month's  treatment,  he  visited 
his  parents  at  Thenars.  There  the  subject  of  his  marriage 
was  mooted.  The  bride  whom  the  Duke  and  Duchess  had 
chosen  for  their  eldest  son  was  a  great  heiress,  Mdlle.  de 
Rohan,  who,  on  account  of  her  vast  wealth,  was  one  of  the 
greatest  matches  in  Europe.  Already  she  had  refused 
several  distinguished  suitors,  among  them  La  Tremoille's 
kinsman.  Prince  Rupert.  But  Mdlle.  de  Rohan's  wealth 
had  no  attraction  for  La  Tremoille,  who  was  still  deeply 
in  love  with  his  cousin  Henrietta  ;  and  during  his  stay  at 
Thouars  he  persuaded  his  parents  to  do  what  they  could 
in  that  quarter  to  further  his  suit. 

Returning  to  Holland,  Tarente  was  in  time  to  engage 
in  the  campaign  of  1644,  in  which  he  had  an  extra- 
ordinary adventure.  The  plague  was  then  devastating 
the  Low  Countries.  After  a  long  night  march,  La 
Tremoille  with  his  regiment  entered  a  village,  where, 
worn  out  with  fatigue,  he  went  into  one  of  the  first 
houses  he  came  to.  There,  without  undressing,  he  threw 
himself  on  a  bed  and  slept  soundly.  Suddenly  he  was 
awakened  by  the  noise  of  trumpets ;  and,  on  opening  his 
eyes,  saw  standing  by  his  bedside  the  village  priest,  who 


i82  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

told  him  that  the  plague  was  rife  in  that  village,  and  that 
he  was  in  an  infected  house  ;  he  believed,  moreover, 
added  the  priest,  that  the  house  contained  the  bodies  of 
its  master  and  mistress,  who,  having  died  of  the  plague, 
were  about  to  be  interred  when  the  army  entered  the 
village.  "  If  we  look  we  shall  find  them,"  said  the  priest. 
And  he  was  not  mistaken.  The  bed  on  which  La  Tremoille 
had  been  calmly  reposing  for  an  hour  was  unmade,  and 
there  beneath  the  mattress  were  the  two  corpses.-^ 

By  a  marvellous  stroke  of  luck  La  Tremoille  escaped 
infection  and  returned  to  the  Hague,  where  he  continued 
to  pay  his  addresses  to  his  cousin.  Many  pages  of  the 
Memoirs  are  devoted  to  this  love  story.  The  lady  herself 
apparently  returned  La  Tremoille's  affection ;  the 
Stadtholder  favoured  his  suit ;  but  in  the  Stadtholder's 
wife,  the  Princess  of  Orange,  Emilie  of  Solms,  he  had  a 
formidable  adversary.  She  had  first  determined  to 
marry  her  eldest  daughter  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  ;  but  as 
the  royal  fortunes  in  England  darkened,  she  selected  as 
her  son-in-law  Frederick  William,  Elector  of  Branden- 
bourg,  who  was  later  to  be  known  as  the  Great  Elector. 
True  to  her  cousin,  however,  Henrietta  was  obdurate, 
and,  when  the  wedding  day  arrived,  the  bride  had  to  be 
conducted  to  the  church  by  force.  In  other  respects, 
too,  the  bridal  was  a  sad  one,  for  Henrietta's  illustrious 
father,  Frederick  Henry,  was  lying  at  the  point  of  death, 
attacked  by  a  mental  malady. 

Shortly  afterwards  the  family  was  summoned  to  his 
death-bed  ;  and  Tarente  tells  us  that  he  could  not  restrain 
his  tears  when  he  saw  this  famous  captain,  "  who  for  so 
many  years  had  gloriously  commanded  the  armies  of  the 
United   Provinces,    and   ruled   the   Republic   with   such 

1  "  M6moires."  28. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  183 

great  wisdom  and  authority,  stretched  upon  his  bed  with 
less  understanding  than  an  infant."  Frederick  Henry 
had  indeed  been  one  of  the  most  striking  figures  of  the 
age  ;  by  his  mihtary  and  poHtical  talents,  by  his  wisdom 
and  his  diplomacy,  he  had  brought  his  country  to  the 
height  of  prosperity.  It  must  have  been  inexpressibly 
sad  to  see  such  a  ruler  laid  low  and  deprived  of  intellect. 
A  few  days  later,  in  March,  1647,  William  the  Silent's 
great  son  passed  away.  "  His  death,"  writes  La  Tre- 
moille,  "  deprived  me  of  all  desire  to  establish  myself  in 
Holland."  So,  bidding  farewell  to  his  former  love, 
whom  he  counselled  to  do  her  best  to  forget  him,  and  to 
live  happily  with  her  husband,  the  Prince  de  Tarente 
returned  to  Thouars. 

Soon  after  his  arrival  negotiations  for  his  mairiage 
with  a  member  of  the  distinguished  German  house  of 
Hesse  Cassel  were  opened,  and  in  a  few  months  carried 
through.  In  September,  1647,  the  La  Tremoille  emissary, 
one  Dumontal  by  name,  was  despatched  to  Cassel  for  the 
drawing  up  of  the  marriage  contract  ;  and  in  the  following 
May,  "  with  more  ceremony  than  he  liked,"  in  the 
Protestant  church  of  Cassel,  the  Prince  de  Tarente  was 
united  to  the  very  noble  and  illustrious  Princess,  Madame 
Emilie,  Princess  Landgrave  of  Hesse. 

The  new  Princesse  de  Tarente,  who  was  later  to  become 
the  friend  of  Madame  de  Sevigne,  and  to  figure  in  her 
letters  as  la  bonne  Tarente,  was  the  daughter  of  the  late 
Landgraf  of  Hesse  Cassel,  Wilhelm  V.  Her  mother,  one 
of  the  strongest-minded  women  of  the  age,  was  Countess 
of    Hanau  Muntzenberg,^  and  lady  of  other   extensive 

1  Her  husband  died  in  1637,  leaving  his  estates  heavily  burdened 
with  debt,  which  his  widow  during  her  son's  long  minority  succeeded 
in  paying  off.  She  was  also  able  to  raise  and  to  maintain  on  the  side 
of  France  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War  a  force  of  6,000  foot  and  4,000  horse. 


i84  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

domains,  the  guttural  names  ^  of  which,  grating  on  the  ears 
of  Madame  de  Sevigne,  were  to  suffer  cruel  distortion 
and  merry  mockery  from  the  pen  of  that  brilliant  letter- 
writer. 

In  his  own  marriage,  the  Prince  de  Tarente  did  not 
succeed  in  practising  the  wise  counsel  he  had  given  to  his 
former  love  :  he  and  his  wife,  if  we  may  believe  the 
Memoirs  ^  of  their  daughter,  Charlotte  Amelie,  Countess  of 
Altenburg,  did  not  live  happily  together.  In  his  own 
Memoirs  the  Prince  very  seldom  mentions  his  wife. 

After  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia  had  made  peace 
between  the  United  Provinces  and  Spain,  Holland  ceased 
to  afford  La  Tremoille  a  field  for  his  warlike  activities. 
He  discovered  one,  however,  in  France,  where  the  war 
which  continued  with  Spain  was  soon  to  be  complicated 
by  the  internal  struggles  of  the  Fronde.^ 

With  the  wisdom  of  after  years,  the  Prince  looked  back 
regretfully  on  this  period  of  his  life.  "  Those  events," 
he  wrote,  referring  to  the  Fronde,  "  did  more  than  any- 
thing else  to  injure  my  own  fortunes,  and  those  of  my 
house."  And,  indeed,  never  in  French  history  was  there 
such  a  medley  of  inconsequence  and  folly  as  that  into 
which  La  Tremoille,  by  the  influence  of  his  cousin,  the 
Prince  de  Cond^,  was  now  being  drawn. 

The  objects  of  the  Frondcurs  were  purely  personal. 
Hatred   of   Cardinal   Mazarin,    the   young   King's   chief 

Meanwhile  her  court  became  a  school  of  manners,  whither  princes 
flocked  to  learn  the  fine  art  of  commanding  others  and  of  commanding 
themselves.  See  Moreri's  Dictionary,  under  Plesse  Cassel,  Amelie 
Elizabeth. 

1  Catzenelmbogen,  Dietz,  Ziegenhaim,  Nidda. 

2  Of  these  interesting  "  Memoirs,"  the  original  MS.  in  French  is  in 
the  Grand  Ducal  Library  at  Oldenburg  ;  translated  into  German,  it 
has  been  published  with  an  introduction,  notes  and  commentary  by 
Dr.  Reinhard  Mosen  (Oldenburg,  Leipzig,  1892).  Mrs.  Aubrey 
Le  Blond  is  preparing  an  English  version. 

^  So  called  from  the  slings  or  Frondes  used  by  Parisian  street  arabs 
in  their  gutter-play.     This  civil  war  broke  out  in  1648. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  185 

minister,  inspired  them  all.  In  La  Tremoille's  case  it 
was  his  desire  to  oust  the  Rohans  from  the  presidency 
over  the  provincial  parliament,  the  estates  of  Brittany, 
that  induced  him  to  throw  in  his  lot  with  the  rebellious 
nobles.  Mazarin  had  favoured  the  Rohans.  The  Prince 
de  Conde,  Tarente's  cousin,  and  the  leader  of  the  Fronde, 
promised  to  espouse  his  kinsman's  cause  if  he  would 
intervene  actively  on  his  side  in  the  civil  war. 

Thus  was  La  Tremoille  drawn  into  that  vortex  of 
romance,  lawlessness  and  hizarrerie  which  for  some  years 
threatened  to  shipwreck  the  fortunes  of  France.  On 
October  ist,  165 1,  we  find  him  accepting  Conde's  com- 
mission to  raise  a  regiment  of  thirty  companies  in  Poitou. 

Among  all  the  confusion  of  the  Fronde,  one  circum- 
stance stands  out  distinctly  ;  the  whole  movement  was 
dominated  by  women,  by  a  group  of  Amazons,  who  were 
at  once  its  instruments  and  its  motive  power,  chiefly  by 
two  duchesses  and  two  princesses,  Chevreuse  and  Longue- 
ville,  the  Palatine,^  and  the  Great  Mademoiselle.  This 
brilliant,  beautiful  and  fascinating  quartette,  mingling 
their  political  intrigues  with  those  of  love,  played  with 
the  honour  and  the  lives  of  men,  and  two  of  them, 
Chevreuse  and  the  Palatine,  did  not  scruple  to  disport 
themselves  on  the  highways  in  masculine  attire. 

Of  the  Palatine  it  was  said  that  not  even  Elizabeth  of 
England  had  more  capacity  for  governing  a  state. 
Madame  de  Longueville's'^  gifts  were  her  blonde  hair 
and  charming  eyes.  But  by  far  the  most  influential 
and  the  most  bizarre  of  the  Frondeuses  was  the  Great 
Mademoiselle,  Anne  de  Montpensier,  daughter  of  Gaston, 

1  Anne  de  Gonzague,  second  daughter  of  Charles  de  Gonzague, 
Due  de  Nevers,  and  of  Catherine  of  Lorraine. 

2  Bom  in  a  prison,  she  died  in  a  convent.  She  was  sister  to  the 
Great  Cond6,  and  cousin,  therefore,  to  the  Prince  de  Tarente. 


i86  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Duke  of  Orleans,  and  grand  -  daughter  of  King 
Henry  IV. 

With  the  Great  Mademoiselle's  two  most  striking 
achievements  during  the  Fronde,  the  capture  of  Orleans 
and  the  battle  of  the  Porte  St.  Antoine,  the  Prince  de 
Tarente  was  more  or  less  connected. 

After  the  Princess's  ludicrous  entry  into  Orleans, 
which,  as  related  in  her  own  Memoirs,  reads  like  an 
absurd  travesty  of  Jeanne  d'Arc's  entering  the  city, 
la  Grande  Mademoiselle  amused  herself  by  receiving 
presents  of  bonbons  from  the  city  council  and  by  seizing 
and  perusing  the  various  despatches  which  passed  through 
the  town.  When  these  chanced  to  contain  love  stories, 
or  to  reveal  family  secrets,  the  conqueress  of  Orleans  was 
mightily  diverted.  One  of  these  captured  despatches, 
which  to  the  Princess  was  very  uninteresting,  to  Tarente 
was  highly  important ;  and  to  him  Mademoiselle  had  the 
good  sense  to  send  it.  The  possession  of  this  letter 
enabled  the  Prince  to  save  his  chateau  of  Taillebourg 
from  being  razed  to  the  ground  by  one  of  Mazarin's 
generals.  But,  balked  of  their  prey  in  one  direction,  the 
Prince's  enemies  turned  in  their  wrath  against  the  most 
lordly  of  all  the  La  Tremoille  castles  and  threatened  to 
besiege  Thenars,  where  Duke  Henry  and  his  Duchess 
were  then  residing. 

It  was  to  obtain  a  force  for  the  protection  of  his  own 
dominions  that  in  March,  1652,  Tarente,  having  resigned 
the  command  which  for  some  months  he  had  been 
exercising  in  Guyenne  and  Saintonge,  went  to  Paris  and 
there  witnessed  the  Great  Mademoiselle's  second  exploit. 

The  Prince  found  Paris  in  a  state  of  the  utmost  disorder. 
In  the  absence  of  Mazarin  and  the  court,  the  feeble, 
vacillating  Duke  of  Orleans,  Mademoiselle's  father,  who 


HENRY  CHARLES  DE  LA  TREMOILLE,  PRINCE  DE  TARENTE 

From  a  photograph  by  Mrs.  Aubrey  Le  Blond  of  a  picture  belonging 
to  Mr.  Aldenburg  Bentinck  at  Indio. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION         187 

should  have  been  at  the  head  of  affairs,  was  proving 
himself  totally  incompetent.  Waves  of  riot  and  robbery 
surged  up  to  the  very  gates  of  his  palace,  the  Luxembourg. 
Only  a  few  yards  away,  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon,  a  President 
of  the  Parlement  was  nearly  murdered.  The  most 
brilliant  figure  of  the  day.  Cardinal  de  Retz,  in  his  Memoirs 
tells  how  he  went  in  hourly  fear  of  death  by  assassination. 

The  horror  of  this  state  of  things  appears  to  have 
impressed  La  Tremoille,  for,  when  Conde  came  to  Paris 
in  April,  we  find  the  Prince  vainly  endeavouring  to 
persuade  his  kinsman  to  make  peace. 

In  May,  Mademoiselle  left  Orleans,  and  entered  Paris, 
where  she  took  up  her  abode  in  the  Tuileries.  On  the 
way  she  had  been  besieged  in  Etampes  by  Mazarin's  army 
under  Turenne. 

Coming  away  from  the  Protestant  sermon  at  Charenton 
one  Sunday  morning.  La  Tremoille  heard  of  the  raising  of 
the  siege  of  Etampes  and  the  march  of  Turenne  towards 
Paris.  Hastening  to  the  Hotel  de  Conde,^  near  the 
Luxembourg,  the  Prince  de  Tarente  was  in  time  to  assist 
at  a  council  of  war,  which  resulted  in  the  raising  of  a 
citizen  army.  With  this  force  Conde,  and  La  Tremoille 
with  him,  marched  out  to  St.  Cloud,  while  Turenne  took 
up  his  position  a  little  further  north,  on  the  opposite  bank 
of  the  Seine,  at  St.  Denis.  A  good  deal  of  skirmishing 
took  place  between  the  two  forces.  And  La  Tremoille 
relates  how,  during  a  night  attack  on  the  village  of  St. 
Denis,  he  and  his  men  crossed  the  moat  up  to  their  necks 
in  water,  and  drove  the  Swiss  guards,  who  were  holding 
the  village  for  Turenne,  to  take  refuge  in  the  Abbey. 
But  two  days  later  the  King's  troops  recaptured  St.  Denis, 

*  The  present  Rue  de  Conde  takes  its  name  from  the  old  hotel,  of 
which  nothing  remains. 


i88  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

and  Conde  soon  began  to  find  his  position  at  St.  Cloud 
untenable. 

He  then  resolved  to  transfer  his  army  to  Charenton  ; 
and,  in  order  to  avoid  making  a  long  detour,  he  asked  the 
municipality  of  Paris  to  allow  his  force  to  pass  through 
the  city.  This  permission,  however,  was  refused.  And 
thus  it  came  about  that  on  the  night  of  July  ist,  as 
Mademoiselle  was  leaning  out  of  her  window  in  the 
Tuileries,  she  heard  the  sound  of  drums  and  trumpets, 
and  saw  in  the  distance  a  whole  army  beginning  to 
defile  past  on  the  other  side  of  the  ramparts.^ 

Close  on  Conde's  rear  Turenne's  army  was  pressing  ; 
and  at  dawn  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine  a  battle  engaged, 
in  which  the Ff^ondeurs,  with  their  backs  to  the  St.  Antoine 
gate,  soon  began  to  have  the  worst  of  it.  Then  it  was 
that  Conde  despatched  in  all  haste  a  message  to  the 
Luxembourg,  imploring  the  Duke  of  Orleans  for  aid.  But 
Gaston,  as  was  his  wont  in  every  crisis,  pleaded  illness  and 
refused  to  see  the  messenger,  who  speedily  went  to  the 
Tuileries  and  knocked  up  Mademoiselle.  It  was  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  heroine  of  Orleans  had 
passed  but  four  hours  in  bed,  for  until  two  o'clock  she  had 
been  at  her  window  watching  the  troops  on  the  march.  In 
a  trice,  however,  she  was  up  and  away  to  the  Luxembourg, 
weeping  and  storming  at  her  phlegmatic  father,  until, 
merely  to  get  rid  of  her,  he  bade  her  be  gone  to  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  to  command  the  municipality  to  open  its  gates  to 
Conde  and  his  army.  Then,  tearing  through  the  streets, 
forcing  her  way  through  the  mob  which  thronged  the  Place 
de  Greve  into  the  presence  of  the  Provost  of  the  Merchants, 
the  aldermen  and  the  governor  of  Paris,  assembled  in 

1  "  Memoires  de  Mdile.  de  Montpensier,"  ed.  Mich,  et  Poujoulat, 
S6r.  II.,  Vol.  IV.,  ii8. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  189 

the  Hotel  de  Ville,  she  read  them  a  letter  from  her  father, 
asking  them  to  excuse  his  absence  through  illness  and  to 
listen  to  his  wishes  as  expressed  by  his  daughter.  These 
wishes  were  that  the  municipality  should  not  only  send 
an  armed  force  to  Conde's  aid,  but  that  they  should 
reverse  their  previous  decision  and  permit  his  army  to 
pass  through  the  city.  It  was  hard  for  these  civic 
dignitaries  thus  to  eat  their  own  words,  and  not  until 
they  had  deliberated  long  and  caused  Mademoiselle  to 
suffer  an  agony  of  suspense,  did  they  agree  to  obey  the 
Duke's  orders. 

Meanwhile,  Conde,  with  whom  Mademoiselle  imagined 
herself  ardently  in  love,  was  in  danger  of  defeat  and  death 
at  the  city  gate.  Of  the  events  which  there  transpired, 
La  Tremoille  in  his  Memoirs  gives  a  vivid  account,  which 
for  the  most  part  may  be  related  in  his  o^vn  words. 

"  Two  harmless  wounds  I  received  in  this  action,"  he 
writes,  "  one  in  the  belt  of  my  cuirasse,  the  other  in  my 
helmet.  In  the  place  of  the  Due  de  Nemours,  who  had 
been  wounded  in  the  hand  I  offered  the  Prince  [Conde] 
to  command  the  vanguard,  a  proposal  he  received  gladly. 
But,  as  I  was  advancing  at  his  side,  my  horse  fell,  killed 
by  a  canon  ball.  Whereupon  the  Prince,  thinking  that 
I  too  had  been  struck,  cried  aloud,  '  Alas  !  unhappy  that 
I  am  to  have  lost  the  last  of  my  friends.'  But  I  from 
beneath  my  horse  called  out  that  I  was  unharmed  and 
suffering  only  from  the  bruises  inflicted  by  my  own 
armour  during  my  fall.  Straightway  a  soldier  brought 
me  another  horse,  which  I  mounted." 

Meanwhile,  continues  La  Tremoille,  Mademoiselle, 
*'  with  a  courage  worthy  of  her  birth,  and  far  superior  to 
that  of  her  sex,  had  come  to  the  Porte  St.  Antoine,  where 
she  persuaded  the  people  that  we  were  fighting  for  their 
liberty  and  for  the  banishment  of  a  Minister  who  oppressed 


igo  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

them.  All  she  could  do,  however,  was  to  induce  them  to 
open  the  gates  so  as  to  let  pass  the  baggage  of  our  army  ; 
and  meanwhile  she  wrote  a  note  to  the  Prince,  entreating 
him  to  save  his  life  by  coming  in  with  the  baggage. 
This  he  refused  to  do.  Later,  owing  to  Mademoiselle's 
persuasions,  a  Parisian  force  came  out  to  join  us.  And 
at  length  the  citizens  listened  to  her  entreaties,  and 
opened  the  gates  to  all  of  us  while  the  canon  of  the 
Bastille  were  fired  on  Turenne's  army.'' 

La  Tremoille's  account  of  these  proceedings  differs  in 
one  or  two  details  from  that  given  by  Mademoiselle  in  her 
Memoirs.  For  example,  the  former  would  indicate  that, 
after  winning  the  consent  of  the  city  council  to  open  the 
gate.  Mademoiselle  had  some  difficulty  in  persuading  the 
citizens  to  carry  out  the  council's  command.  Made- 
moiselle herself  does  not  mention  this.  But,  however  it 
may  have  been,  Paris  was  now  enthusiastically  Frondeur. 
Conde  and  Mademoiselle  were  the  heroes  of  the  hour. 
La  Tremoille  shared  their  triumph.  With  his  cousin, 
Tarente  went  to  the  Luxembourg,  where  Gaston  d'Orleans 
received  him,  "  doing  me  the  honour,"  he  writes,  "  to  say 
that  I  had  caused  him  more  anxiety  than  anyone." 

During  the  weeks  that  followed,  Paris  was  in  an  uproar. 
Its  fickle  citizens  vacillated  from  side  to  side,  while  the 
leaders  of  both  parties  were  negotiating  or  playing  at 
negotiations,  as  was  their  custom  throughout  the  Fronde. 
And  meanwhile  Mazarin  was  trying  to  use  La  Tremoille 's 
known  discontent  with  his  position  in  Conde's  army  to 
detach  him  from  his  cousin.  But  the  Cardinal  did  not 
succeed  ;  Tarente 's  affection  for  the  Prince  won  the  day  ; 
and  when  the  latter  fell  ilP  in  September,  it  was  La 

*  Cond6  was  suffering  from  the  stone,  a  malady  he  had  inherited 
from  his  father. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  191 

Tremoille  who  commanded  his  troops    in  the  constant 
skirmishings  with  the  royal  forces  outside  the  city  gates. 

The  Parisians  soon  grew  tired  of  feeding  Conde's  army, 
and,  victuals  having  been  refused,  the  leader  of  the  Fronde, 
on  October  14th,  was  compelled  to  quit  the  capital.^ 
With  him  went  La  Tremoille.  They  directed  their  march 
to  Champagne,  where,  as  the  result  of  a  series  of  brilliant 
military  operations,  Conde  captured  several  towns.  He 
was  unable  to  hold  them,  however,  for  any  length  of  time  ; 
and,  finding  it  impossible  to  take  any  firm  foothold  in  this 
province,  he  made  his  way  to  the  northern  frontier. 
There  La  Tremoille  remained  with  him  while  he  was 
recovering  from  another  illness  in  his  great  forest-girt 
fortress  of  Stenay,  through  the  winter  of  1652-3.  And 
it  was  then  that  the  Prince  de  Tarente  followed  his  leader, 
who  had  been  appointed  general  of  the  Spanish  forces,  and 
openly  joined  the  enemy  of  his  country. 

In  the  summer  of  this  year  the  Prince  left  his  cousin  for 
a  while  in  order  to  go  to  Holland  and  raise  money. 
Returning  to  the  French  frontier.  La  Tremoille  found 
Conde  again  stricken  with  illness,  while  his  troops  were 
about  to  attack  the  town  of  Rocroy.  Then  Tarente,  so 
he  tells  us,  took  the  command,  and  after  a  siege  of  twenty- 
two  days,  captured  the  town.^ 

But  Conde's  army,  writes  the  Prince,  was  in  a  terrible 
plight,  two-thirds  of  the  cavalry  unmounted,  and  the  rest 
of  the  soldiers  wretchedly  accoutred.  Willingly  would 
La  Tremoille  have  equipped  them  at  his  own  expense,  had 
he  been  able.  But  his  fortune  was  spent  and  his  credit 
exhausted,  as  well  as  that  of  his  friends.     Indeed,    for 

1  Cardinal  de  Retz,  "Memoires,"  ed.  Mich,  et  Poujoulat,  Ser.  III., 
Vol.  I.,  396 — 400. 

2  The  great  History  of  the  Princes  of  Cond6,  by  the  Due  d'Aumale, 
Vol.  VI.,  Chap.  5,  while  stating  that  Cond6  was  ill  at  this  time,  makes 
no  mention  of  La  Tr6moille's  command. 


192  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

generations  the  La  Tremoille  treasury  was  to  suffer  from 
deplenishment  through  the  Prince  de  Tarente's  lavish 
expenditure  during  this  civil  war. 

Hopeless  of  achieving  anything  with  so  miserable  a 
force,  the  Prince  threw  up  his  command  and  returned  to 
Holland. 

At  Spa  in  the  previous  summer  he  had  met  the  exiled 
Charles  II.  of  England,  who,  having  been  turned  out  of 
France,  where  his  presence  impeded  Mazarin's  negotia- 
tions with  Cromwell,  had  come  to  drink  the  waters  with 
his  sister  Mary,  the  Dowager  Princess  of  Orange.  While 
residing  in  France,  Charles  had  played  a  prominent  part 
in  the  interminable  negotiations  between  Frondeurs  and 
Royalists  ;  and  there  doubtless  he  had  met  La  Tremoille, 
whose  importance  and  capacity  must  have  made  a  great 
impression  on  the  King.  For  Charles  now  conferred  on 
him  one  of  the  highest  honours  left  to  the  banished 
monarch  to  bestow,  he  invested  him  with  the  Order  of  the 
Garter.  But  in  return  for  this  favour,  Charles  asked  the 
Prince  to  do  him  a  service,  which  La  Tremoille  found  it 
impossible  to  perform,  viz.  :  to  effect  a  reconciliation 
between  the  Princess  of  Orange  and  her  mother-in-law, 
that  quarrelsome  Emilie  de  Solms,  who  had  never  forgiven 
Tarente  for  aspiring  to  the  hand  of  her  daughter. 

Once  having  cut  himself  adrift  from  his  country.  La 
Tremoille  grew  extremely  eclectic  in  his  foreign  relations. 
Having  drawn  sword  for  the  Catholic  King,  and  accepted 
high  honour  from  Charles,  the  Prince  now  negotiated 
with  the  champion  of  Protestantism  and  Charles's  mortal 
enemy,  Oliver  Cromwell.  While  still  at  Spa,  La  Tremoille 
received  an  emissary  from  the  Protector,  who  asked  him 
to  lead  a  movement  of  the  French  Protestant  churches 
against  the  French  crown.    But  the  Prince's  Protestantism 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  193 

was  purely  political,  and  in  so  rash  an  enterprise  he 
refused  to  involve  himself  unless  the  Protector  would 
undertake  to  appear  in  Languedoc.  This  was  impossible  ; 
and  so  the  negotiations,  during  which  La  Tremoille  had 
been  careful  not  to  commit  himself  in  writing,  fell  through. 

In  the  winter  of  1654 — 5  the  Prince  was  at  the 
Hague,  where  his  hospitable  reception  encouraged  him  to 
send  for  his  wife,  the  Princess  Emilie,  and  his  sister,  Marie 
Charlotte.  And  it  was  at  the  Hague,  in  May,  1655,  that 
his  eldest  son,  Charles,  was  born.  He  already  had  a 
daughter,  Charlotte  Emilie.^ 

Despite  his  father's  poverty,  the  baptism  of  the  infant 
Prince  on  July  i8th  was  a  magnificent  and  gorgeous 
ceremony,  which  is  described  in  detail  in  a  document  of 
the  La  Tremoille  archives.^  For  sponsors  the  babe  had 
the  Estates  of  the  United  Provinces,  represented  by  the 
deputies  of  Guelders,  Holland,  Zealand,  and  Utrecht ;  the 
King  of  Sweden,  Charles  Gustavus,^  represented  by  Baron 
Spar ;  and  his  aunt.  Mademoiselle  de  La  Tremoille. 

Amidst  a  huge  concourse  of  people  assembled  from  all 
the  neighbouring  towns,  preceded  by  a  body  of  troops  and 
followed  by  all  that  was  most  distinguished  at  the  Dutch 
court,  this  tiny  scrap  of  humanity,  smothered  in  jewels 
and  cloth  of  silver,  lying  on  a  cushion  of  the  same,  from 
which  depended  an  interminable  train  borne  by  two  noble 
damsels,  was  carried  by  his  aunt,  Marie  Charlotte,  to  the 
Protestant  Temple  at  the  Hague. 

There  he  received  the  names  of  Charles,  after  his  royal 
godfather,  of  HoUande,  after  one  of  his  mother's  kinsmen, 
and  of  Belgique,  after  the  Estates.     A  luxurious  banquet 

*  Known  also  as  "  Amelie." 

^  "  Les  La  Tremoilles  pendant  cinq  Siecles,"  IV.,  203 — 206. 
^  Cousin  and  successor  of  the  famous  Christina,  who  had  abdicated 
in  the  previous  year. 

C.R.  O 


194  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

followed  the  christening.  From  seven  o'clock  in  the 
evening  until  four  in  the  morning  the  illustrious  guests 
were  entertained,  their  ears  diverted  "  by  the  flourishing 
of  trumpets,  the  sound  of  timbrels,  and  the  harmony  of 
viols,  and  their  palates  flattered  by  the  delicacy  and 
diversity  of  the  viands  set  before  them."  A  few  days 
later  the  Estates  bestowed  upon  their  godson  a  pension 
for  life  of  i,ooo  golden  florins,  to  begin  on  July  i8th  in  the 
following  year. 

Throughout  1655,  high  pomps  and  pageants  were  the 
order  of  the  day  at  the  Dutch  court.  In  one  of  her  lively 
letters  to  her  nephew  Charles  II.,  Elizabeth  of  Bohemia 
tells  of  a  court  ball  at  which  the  King's  sister,  the  Princess 
of  Orange,  appeared  as  an  Amazon,  and  the  Princesse  de 
Tarente  as  a  shepherdess.  For  the  Princesse  de  Tarente 
such  pastimes  might  be  all  very  well,  but  such  a  life  of 
mere  court  gaiety  irked  her  husband's  martial  soul. 
Now  that  the  war  was  over,  Holland  was  no  place  for  him. 
His  active  mind  longed  for  battles  and  sieges,  or,  failing 
them,  for  a  political  career.  And  so,  towards  the  end  of 
this  year,  we  find  him  soliciting  from  the  French  court 
pardon  for  his  treason  and  permission  to  return  to  the 
land  of  his  birth.  Both  these  requests  Mazarin,  now 
completely  reinstated  in  power,  granted  with  apparent 
magnanimity.  But  the  wily  Cardinal  had  his  own  ends 
to  serve.  La  Tremoille,  however,  was  qilick  to  discern 
them.  He  was  not  to  be  hoodwinked  by  "  the  suave, 
affable  and  insinuating  air  "  with  which  Mazarin  greeted 
him  on  his  arrival  in  Paris.  The  Prince  realised  imme- 
diately that  this  arch  schemer  wanted  to  use  him  as 
mediator  with  the  still  implacable  Conde ;  and  La 
Tremoille,  much  to  the  disappointment  of  his  relatives, 
refused  thus  to  be  made  a  tool  of.     In  a  very  irreconcilable 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  195 

mood,  therefore,  he  left  Paris  to  go  down  and  visit  his 
parents  at  Thouars. 

It  was  there  and  then  that  Duke  Henry  resigned  the 
dukedom  of  Thouars  into  his  son's  hands. ^  And  the 
Prince  went  back  to  Paris  to  take  his  seat  in  the 
Parlement. 

Mazarin  had  already  begun  to  take  his  revenge  for  La 
Tremoille's  obduracy  by  inciting  the  young  Louis  XIV. 
to  find  fault  with  the  Prince  for  having  without  his 
sovereign's  permission  accepted  an  Order  from  a  foreign 
king.  But  by  some  means  or  other  Louis  had  been  won 
over  to  La  Tremoille's  side,  and  on  the  previous  ist  of 
November  the  Prince  de  Tarente  had  received  his  King's 
permission  to  wear  the  Garter.  All  the  while,  however, 
Mazarin  continued  to  plot  against  him.  And  the  Prince's 
attempt  to  rouse  the  peasants  of  Poitou  to  resist  the 
imposition  of  the  salt  tax  did  not  render  the  Minister 
more  friendly. 

In  the  spring  of  1656  the  court  was  at  Compiegne  ; 
and  thither  La  Tremoille  was  summoned  to  join  it.  The 
Cardinal  was  amiability  itself.  He  engaged  the  Prince  in 
long  conversations,  which  always  terminated  with  an  en- 
treaty that  he  would  renounce  Conde  and  aU  his  works. 
Then,  finding  the  Prince  hopelessly  obdurate,  Mazarin 
changed  his  tactics ;  La  Tremoille  suddenly  found 
himself  arrested,  hurried  into  a  coach  with  an  officer 
and  two  guards,  and  whirled  away  to  the  citadel  of 
Amiens. 

"  I  have  heard  with  great  sorrow  of  your  son's  im- 
prisonment. I  have  since  learnt  .  .  .  that  his  life  is  not 
in  danger,  for  which  I  bless  God.  ...  I  do  not  doubt  that, 

^  The  document  of  abdication  is  dated  January  20th,  1656  ("  Les 
La  Tr^moilles  pendant  cinq  Siecies,"  IV.,  177). 

O  2 


196  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

with  God's  help  for  which  I  pray,  he  will  soon  recover  his 
liberty."  Thus  wrote  Lady  Derby  to  her  sister-in- 
law.^  And  we  may  be  certain  that  the  energetic  Marie 
de  La  Tour  left  not  a  stone  unturned  in  her  efforts  to 
obtain  her  son's  liberty. 

Fortunately,  on  his  way  to  prison.  La  Tremoille  had 
fallen  in  with  a  knight  of  his  mother's  suite,  by  whom  he 
had  been  able  to  send  a  message,  not  only  to  the  Duchess, 
Marie,  but  to  the  Elector  of  Brandenbourg,  husband  of  his 
former  love,  to  the  King  of  Sweden,  his  son's  godfather, 
to  the  Landgraf  of  Hesse  Cassel,  his  brother-in-law,  and 
to  his  good  friends,  the  States  General  of  the  United 
Provinces,  all  of  whom  he  implored  to  intervene  on  his 
behalf.  Through  their  influence  probably,  and  through 
the  kindness  of  the  governor,  he  was  leniently  treated  in 
prison,  permitted  to  walk  on  the  ramparts  of  the  fortress, 
to  converse  with  the  townsfolk,  and  to  communicate  with 
his  friends.  His  mother  also  was  allowed  to  visit  him 
and  to  discuss  with  him  plans  for  his  liberation.  She 
had  doubtless  already  interceded  with  Mazarin,  and  now 
she  came  to  implore  her  son  as  the  price  of  his  freedom  to 
give  an  undertaking,  should  the  Cardinal  require  it,  that 
he  would  leave  the  country.  This  La  Tremoille  promised 
to  do.  Meanwhile,  in  case  his  relatives'  intercession 
should  fail,  he  was  laying  plans  for  his  escape  :  a  faithful 
friend  had  smuggled  into  his  prison  ropes  and  an  anchor, 
with  which  to  attach  them  to  the  wall ;  another  friend 
was  sounding  the  moat,  and  yet  another  had  horses  in 
readiness. 

All  these  contrivances,  however,  proved  unnecessary  ; 
for  Mazarin  agreed  to  the  Duchess's  conditions  and 
released  her  son,  permitting  him  to  come  to  Paris  to 

1  See  Madame  de  Witt,  "  The  Lady  of  Lathom,"  221. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  197 

arrange  his  affairs  before  starting  for  abroad.  At  the 
Porte  St.  Antoine,  La  Tremoille's  mother  awaited  him, 
and  while  he  was  in  Paris  busied  herself  with  further 
negotiations  on  his  behalf,  which  resulted  in  a  permission 
to  go  down  to  Brittany  and  spend  six  weeks  with  his 
father.  During  this  time  other  friends  were  working  for 
him,  notably  his  kinsman,  the  Due  de  Noirmoustiers, 
and  with  such  success  that  the  decree  of  banishment 
from  France  was  commuted  into  banishment  from 
Paris. 

But  for  three  years  longer,  until  the  Treaty  of  the 
Pyrenees  in  1659,  the  Prince  was  far  from  being  a  free 
man.  Mazarin  controlled  his  movements,  forbidding 
him  to  visit  discontented  Poitou,  banishing  him  from  his 
Breton  estates,  and  finally  commanding  him  to  reside 
either  at  Troyes  or  at  Auxerre.  There  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve, also,  that  all  this  while  La  Tremoille  was  intriguing 
with  Conde  and  fanning  discontent  with  Mazarin's 
government.  Finally,  however,  the  Treaty  of  the 
Pyrenees  ended  civil  as  well  as  foreign  war.  Conde  sub- 
mitted, and  the  King  and  Queen  received  La  Tremoille 
at  Toulouse.  "  The  King  told  me  he  had  forgotten 
everything,"  wrote  Tarente,  "  and  that  in  the  future  he 
would  give  me  proofs  of  his  affection.''  Conde  was  now 
free  to  return  to  France  ;  and  after  some  years'  separation 
there  was  an  affectionate  meeting  of  the  cousins  at  Dijon, 
where  La  Tremoille  promised  to  do  his  best  to  restore 
Conde  to  the  Cardinal's  good  graces. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  after  Mazarin 's  death  in 
1661  that  Conde  and  Tarente  were  completely  reinstated 
in  all  honour  and  greatness  at  court.  Then  at  length 
Louis  XIV.  granted  to  La  Tremoille  that  dignity  so  long 
solicited  by  bis  house  of  presiding  over  the  Assembly  of 


igS  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

the  Breton  Estates.  And  the  Prince's  conduct  of  the 
session  rendered  him  highly  popular  with  the  King,  for 
at  La  Tremoille's  suggestion  a  sum  of  no  less  than 
400,000  livres,  afterwards  doubled,  was  granted  to  the 
Crown. 

In  the  following  year,  on  July  20th,  1662,  La  Tr^moille 
married  his  sister  Marie  Charlotte  to  Bernard  of  Saxony, 
Duke  of  Jena,  fourth  son  of  the  Duke  of  Saxe  Weimar. 
And  on  this  occasion  Tarente  obtained  from  Louis  XIV. 
the  official  recognition  of  the  title  of  Prince  and  Princess 
for  all  the  members  of  his  house,  titles  which  they 
had  assumed  since  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
but  were  apparently  only  now  officially  permitted  to 
bear. 

Then  it  was  that  La  Tremoille  ladies  first  began  to 
enjoy  that  honour  so  greedily  coveted  by  all  high-born 
French  dames  and  damsels  of  remaining  seated  on  a 
tabouret  or  armless  chair  in  the  presence  of  their  Sovereign. 
Charlotte  Amelie  tells  ^  how  to  her  great  chagrin,  on 
her  promotion  to  the  tabouret  at  the  age  of  ten,  her 
La  Tremoille  pride  and  person  suffered  a  humiliating  fall. 
The  Princess  being  very  small  and  the  tabouret  very  high, 
she  had  to  be  lifted  on  to  it  by  an  Abbe  of  the  Queen's 
household.  But  he  placed  her  too  far  forward  on  the 
stool,  and  she,  trying  to  seat  herself  more  comfortably, 
fell  off,  amidst  the  loud  laughter  of  the  assembled  court. 
Other  privileges  only  granted  to  foreign  princes  were 
now  accorded  to  the  La  Tremoilles.  For  as  Princes  of 
Taranto  they  now  asserted  their  right  to  the  Neapolitan 
crown,  which  they  claimed  to  have  inherited  from  their 
ancestress  Anne  de  Laval,  grand-daughter  of  Frederick  of 
Arragon,  King  of  Naples,  who  in  1521  married  Frangois 
1  Memoirs,  19.     See  ante,  184,  n.  2. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  199 

de  La  Tremoille.^  This  right,  maintained  for  over  a 
hundred  years,  and  discussed  lengthily  during  the 
negotiations  which  preceded  the  Treaties  of  Westphalia, 
Nymwegen,  Ryswick  and  Utrecht,  was  asserted  for  the 
last  time  in  1748. 

After  Marie  Charlotte's  wedding  the  Prince  and 
Princesse  de  Tarente  accompanied  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom to  Germany.  Then,  leaving  his  wife  at  Hesse 
Cassel,  the  Prince  went  to  Holland.  So  warm  a  welcome 
did  he  receive  from  his  old  friends  at  the  Hague  that  a 
visit  of  three  weeks  was  prolonged  into  a  residence  of 
three  years,  during  which  La  Tremoille  engaged  in  a  war 
between  the  United  Provinces  and  the  Bishop  of  Munster, 
and  received  the  governorship  of  the  fortress  of  Bois- 
le-Duc. 

His  mother's  death  in  1665  brought  him  back  to 
France.  Marie  de  La  Tour's  striking  personality  had 
impressed  itself  strongly  on  the  inhabitants  of  Thouars, 
where  she  died  and  was  buried.  In  a  history  of  the  town,^ 
we  read  that  for  many  a  year  the  inhabitants  had  trembled 
before  the  terrible  duchess,  not  because  she  was  unjust, 

1  Frederick  of  Arragon,  King  of  Naples,  who  ascended  the 
throne  in  1496. 

I 
Charlotte  w.  le  Comte  de  Laval. 

Anne  de  Laval  m.  (151 1)  Fran9ois  de  la  Tremoille. 

Louis  de  La  Tremoille, 
ist  Due  de  Thouars. 

Claude,  Duo  de  Thouars. 

Henri,  Due  de  Thouars. 

I 
Charles  Henry,  Prince  de  Tarente. 

See  Introduction  to  "  M^moires  de  Charles  de  La  Trdmoille,  Prince 
de  Tarente,"  and  "  Les  La  Tr^moilles  pendant  cinq  Sidles,"  V.,  202,  203. 
2  Berthre  de  Bournisseaux,  "  Histoire  de  la  Ville  de  Thouars  depuis 
I'An  759  jusqu'en  1815  ..."  (Niort,  1824). 


200  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

but  because  they  knew  that  to  the  uttermost  farthing, 
with  unbending  severity,  she  would  always  extort  from 
her  husband's  vassals  the  payment  of  every  feudal  due, 
alike  in  labour,  in  coin,  and  in  kind.  At  the  time  when 
Thouars  Castle  was  in  building,  the  artisans  and  labourers 
were  so  oppressed  by  her  exactions  that  for  long  after- 
wards they  cursed  her  name  and  her  memory.  Genera- 
tions later,  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  when  the  mob 
broke  into  the  chateau,  hers  was  the  only  portrait  which 
was  desecrated.  While  the  picture  of  the  tyrannical 
Marie  was  covered  with  filth,  those  of  her  kinsfolk,  many 
of  them,  were  carried  off  by  the  townspeople  to  be  hung 
in  their  houses  as  objects  of  veneration.  Owing  to  her 
Protestant  faith,  which  she  had  held  firmly  to  the  end, 
Marie's  Catholic  husband  would  not  allow  her  to  be  buried 
with  the  other  La  Tremoilles  in  the  consecrated  Catholic 
church  of  Notre  Dame.  At  the  southern  comer,  therefore, 
of  the  main  wing  of  the  chateau  a  vault  was  prepared,  and 
there  the  remains  of  Marie  de  La  Tour  d'Auvergne  rest  in 
peace,  having  escaped  the  fury  of  the  Revolutionaries, 
who,  leaving  this  Protestant  grave  unharmed,  spent  their 
wrath  on  the  desecration  of  the  tombs  in  the  neighbouring 
chapel.  Now  and  again,  however,  the  ravages  of  time 
have  threatened  to  accomplish  that  which  revolutionary 
anger  spared  ;  the  eastern  wall  of  the  vault  has  more  than 
once  needed  reparation,  and  when  cracks  appear  in  it 
the  Thouarese  say  that  it  is  because  Marie  de  La  Tour 
wants  fresh  air. 

After  his  mother's  death,  the  Prince  de  Tarente  with 
his  wife  and  three  children  left  Holland  to  take  up  his 
residence  at  Thouars  with  the  old  Duke  Henry,  who  was 
now  bedridden  with  gout.  And  there,  occupied  in 
administering  his  estates,  and  in  occasionally  presiding 


Q^UiJn\u>r  i)c  /i/  ':7rcrniT///c   ff   (h-  \/ oi/inh  ^  Sic  -  ^ 


^Pof 


■L-.^  p. 


i,UI,'^ 


<j/e. 


j'erftitfCr  '<M 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  201 

over  the  meetings  of  Breton  deputies,  Charles  de  La 
Tremoille  passed  the  last  seven  years  of  his  life.  The 
differences  which  had  always  divided  the  Prince  and 
Princess  were  increased  when,  in  1670,  Tarente  reverted 
to  his  father's  faith,  and  was  admitted  by  the  Bishop  of 
Angers  into  the  Catholic  Church. 

Madame  de  Tarente  remained  the  staunchest  of 
Protestants,  and  took  her  husband's  change  of  religion  in 
the  most  tragic  manner.  Her  example  was  followed  by 
her  daughter  Charlotte  Amelie,  who  relates  in  her  Memoirs 
how  by  her  father's  apostasy  the  household  at  Thouars 
became  divided  against  itself.  Nothing  indicates  more 
clearly  the  bitterness  of  religious  strife  in  those  days  than 
the  story  of  how  the  Prince's  eldest  son  was  separated 
from  his  mother  and  sister,  and  conveyed  away  to  Angers, 
where  six  weeks*  virtual  imprisonment  and  the  society 
of  monks  and  priests  reduced  him  to  embracing  his 
father's  religion. 

Fearing  that  her  daughter  too  would  be  forced  into 
the  Catholic  Church,  Madame  de  Tarente  obtained  from 
her  kinswoman,  the  Queen  of  Denmark,  an  invitation  for 
Charlotte  Amelie  to  become  lady-in-waiting  at  the  Danish 
court.  Then,  its  acceptance  having  been  forbidden  by 
the  Prince  de  Tarente,  who  was  devotedly  attached  to  his 
daughter,  the  Princess  surreptitiously  obtained  a  pass- 
port from  Louis  XIV.,  and  during  her  husband's  absence 
at  Paris  set  forth  for  Denmark. 

Meanwhile  the  King  chanced  to  remark  casually  to 
Tarente  that  he  heard  his  daughter  was  going  to  Den- 
mark. "  No,"  replied  the  Prince,  "  I  have  refused  my 
consent."  "  But  I,"  said  Louis,  "  have  signed  her 
passport."  Forthwith,  Tarente  left  the  court  and 
started  for  Thouars,  hoping  to  be  in  time  to  prevent  his 


202  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

daughter's  departure.  At  Blois  he  fell  in  with  the 
travellers.  There  was  a  terrible  scene  between  husband 
and  wife,  at  which  Charlotte  AmeHe  was  present.  But 
Madame  de  Tarente  won  the  day  and  carried  off  her 
daughter  to  Denmark. 

In  high  dudgeon  the  ladies  parted  from  the  Prince,  whom 
they  were  never  to  see  again,  for,  before  the  travellers 
arrived  at  Copenhagen,  news  reached  them  of  La  Tre- 
moille's  sudden  death  at  Thouars  on  September  14th, 
1672. 

Four  of  the  Prince  de  Tarente's  children  survived  him  : 
two  daughters,  Charlotte  Amelie  the  eldest,  whose 
adventures  at  the  Danish  court  are  related  in  the  next 
chapter ;  Marie  Sylvie  Brabantine,  who,  bom  in  1666, 
died  at  Paris  in  1693,  apparently  unmarried ;  a  third 
daughter,  Henriette,  bom  in  1662,  died  in  1665  ;  and  two 
sons,  Charles  Belgique  HoUande,  who  succeeded  his  father 
as  Due  de  La  Tremoille,  and  Frederic  Guillaume,  who, 
having  entered  the  Church  and  become  Abbe  de  Sainte 
Croix,  later  exchanged  the  ecclesiastical  state  for  the 
army.^ 

1  See  post,  260,  and  n.,  also  Anselme,  "Histoire  G^nealogique,"  IV., 
173.  Bournisseaux,  "  Histoire  de  la  Ville  de  Thouars,"  202,  says  he 
remained  in  the  Church,  becoming  Cardinal  and  Archbishop  of  Cambrai. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION    203 


CHAPTER  Vni^ 

LA  BONNE  TARENTE  AND  HER  DAUGHTER,  AS  THEY  APPEAR 
IN  THE  LETTERS  OF  MADAME  DE  SEVIGNE 

Our  friends  across  the  Channel,  we  know,  have  a 
faculty  for  seeing  the  ludicrous  side  of  things  in  general, 
and  of  their  foreign  neighbours  in  particular.  Many  an 
English  character  stands  impaled  on  French  satire  for  as 
long  as  the  French  language  shall  last,  and  Germans  have 
suffered  even  more  from  the  brilliance  of  Gallic  wit  and 
the  malice  of  Gallic  raillery. 

But  there  is  no  malice,  although  some  raillery  and 
much  wit,  in  the  portrait  which  Madame  de  Sevigne  in 
her  famous  letters  draws  of  her  German  friend,  Charles 
de  La  Tremoille's  widow,  the  Princesse  de  Tarente,  or 
la  honne  Tarente  as  the  letter-writer  generally  calls  her. 

After  the  Prince's  death,  Madame  de  Tarente  used  to 
reside  during  the  summer  in  the  La  Tremoille  chateau  of 
Vitre.  There  she  found  herself  but  two  miles  from  the 
Marquise  de  Sevigne *s  country  seat  of  Les  Rochers.  The 
Princess  and  the  Marchioness  rapidly  struck  up  a  friend- 
ship. Both  Madame  de  Tarente's  royal  connections  and 
her  travels  in  Europe  deeply  impressed  Sevigne.  "  La 
honne  Tarente  is  related  to  all  the  royalties  in  Europe,"  she 
wrote.  And  on  one  of  the  rare  occasions  when  she  found 
the  Princess  out  of  mourning,  "  I  am  pleased  to  see  that  the 
health  of  Europe  is  good,"  exclaimed  the  Marchioness. 

1  This  chapter  appeared  in  The  Englishwoman,  and  it  is  a  pleasant 
duty  to  thank  the  Editor,  Miss  Goodman,  for  her  kindness  in  permitting 
its  reproduction. 


204  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

In  the  eyes  of  Sevigne,  who  had  never  been  out  of 
France,  Tarente's  two  visits  to  Denmark,  and  frequent 
sojoumings  in  Holland,  constituted  her  a  great  traveller. 
"  That's  what  I  call  travelling,"  wrote  the  Marquise, 
and  she  took  it  in  all  seriousness  when  her  friend 
asserted  that  she  was  never  so  well  as  when  going  round 
the  world. 

Some  journeys,  short  but  formidable  in  those  days  of 
bad  provincial  roads,  the  Princess  and  the  Marchioness 
undertook  in  company.  Together  they  visited  their 
country  neighbours,  and  even  went  so  far  as  the  capital 
of  their  province,  Rennes.  In  one  remote  country  house 
they  were  surprised  to  find  the  most  elegant  repast  they 
had  partaken  of  for  a  long  while  :  turtles  and  quails, 
peaches  and  pears  as  fine  as  those  of  the  Hotel  de  Ram- 
bouillet  at  Paris,  led  them  to  reflect  that  money,  even  in 
the  heart  of  the  provinces,  can  procure  anything. 

It  was  on  one  of  the  hottest  days  in  August  that  the 
two  ladies  made  what  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  a 
triumphant  entry  into  Rennes.  This  ceremony  Madame 
de  Sevigne  describes  in  one  of  her  liveliest  letters.  She  tells 
how  they  were  met  a  short  distance  out  of  the  town  by  a 
company  of  guards,  then  by  the  Governor  of  the  Province 
with  two  Presidents  of  provincial  parlements  and  eight 
other  dignitaries.  "  We  stopped,"  writes  the  Marchioness, 
"  we  kissed,  we  perspired,  we  talked,  not  knowing  what 
we  said,  we  advanced  in  a  six-horsed  coach,  followed  by 
five  such  coaches  and  by  six  others  drawn  by  four  horses. 
We  listened  to  trumpets,  to  drums,  and  to  people  who 
were  all  determined  to  shout  out  something  .  .  .  then, 
alighting  at  the  Governor's  house,  we  were  received  by 
his  wife  and  four  dames  and  four  damsels  of  quality.  We 
all  kissed,  men  as  well  as  women  !     How  odd  it  was  ! 


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TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  205 

But  the  Princess  set  the  example  and  I  followed  with 
amiable  alacrity.  In  the  end,  so  intense  was  the  heat, 
and  so  copiously  were  we  perspiring,  that  our  cheeks 
stuck  together  in  perfect  union.  Extricating  ourselves 
with  difficulty,  we  returned  to  our  coach,  so  dishevelled  as 
to  be  quite  unrecognisable." 

Once  established  in  the  country  for  the  summer,  it  was 
seldom  that  the  two  friends  could  be  induced  to  quit  their 
peaceful  parks  and  linden  groves.  There  for  some  years, 
from  1675  until  1685,  they  were  accustomed  to  spend 
July,  August,  and  September,  exchanging  ceremonious 
visits  or  dropping  in  unexpectedly  and  vying  with  one 
another  in  the  preparation  of  elaborate  fricassees  or  simple 
alfresco  luncheons.  Sauntering  along  those  garden  walks 
of  Les  Rochers,  which,  still  redolent  of  the  atmosphere  of 
the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  even  to-day  bear  the  names 
given  them  by  the  Pr&cieuse  Marquise,  *'the  Temperament 
of  my  Mother,"  "  the  Honour  of  my  Daughter,"  "  the 
Infinite,"  "  the  Echo,"  "  the  Solitary,"  these  two  high- 
bom  dames  exchanged  many  a  confidence  and  told  many 
a  tale  on  all  manner  of  topics,  ranging  from  drugs  and  dogs 
to  daughters. 

The  talk  fell  on  dogs  one  day  when  Sevigne  whistled  to 
a  neighbour's  spaniel  who  crossed  their  path.  "  What ! 
you  know  how  to  call  a  dog  !  "  exclaimed  her  companion, 
marvelling  at  the  variety  of  her  friend's  accomplishments. 
"  I  will  send  you  one  of  the  prettiest  in  the  world."  "  No, 
thank  you,"  replied  the  Marquise,  "  I  have  decided  not 
to  be  led  into  any  such  kind  of  attachment." 

Her  protests  were  vain,  however.  For  a  day  or  two 
later  there  arrived  at  Les  Rochers  a  servant  carrying  "  a 
little  dog's  house,  delicately  perfumed  and  extremely 
beautiful."  In  it  was  a  lovely  little  creature,  **  such  ears. 


2o6  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

such  a  silky  coat,  such  sweet  breath,  as  tiny  as  a  sylphid, 
as  fair  as  a  fairy/' 

*'  Never  was  I  more  surprised  or  embarrassed,"  writes 
the  Marquise.  "  I  wanted  to  send  him  away,  but  could 
not  find  it  in  my  heart  to  do  so.  And  so  he  stays,  sleeping 
in  his  little  house  in  my  maid's  room,  and  eating  nothing 
but  bread.  His  name  is  Fidele.  He  is  so  pretty,  such  a 
dear,  such  pretty  little  ways,  such  perfect  behaviour.  I 
am  resolved  not  to  love  him,  but  he  begins  to  grow  fond 
of  me,  and  I  fear  lest  I  may  succumb.  But  if  I  did,  how 
could  I  ever  face  Marphise  [her  little  dog  in  Paris]  ? 
For  I  have  aspired  to  that  perfection  of  never  loving  but 
one  dog  in  defiance  of  M.  de  la  Rochefoucauld's  maxim 
that  there  may  be  many  women  who  have  never  had  a 
love  affair,  but  very  few  who  have  had  only  one.  The 
thought  of  Marphise  obsesses  me.  I  can't  imagine  what 
to  say  to  her  or  how  to  excuse  myself.  This  is  the  kind  of 
thing  that  makes  one  untruthful.  All  I  could  do  would 
be  to  tell  her  how  the  entanglement  arose.  It  is  just  one 
of  those  embarrassments  which  I  had  made  up  my  mind 
to  avoid.  What  a  striking  example  of  human  weakness  is 
this  disaster  which  has  befallen  me  at  Vitre  !  " 

The  gift  of  a  lap-dog  was  only  one  of  the  many  kind- 
nesses which  la  bonne  Tarente  pressed  upon  her  somewhat 
reluctant  friend.  The  Princess  was  one  of  those  practical 
housewives,  who  have  a  remedy  for  every  disease  and 
every  accident,  and  who,  when  accidents  and  diseases  do 
not  exist,  insist  on  inventing  them.  She  loved  to  relate 
the  wonderful  cures  effected  by  her  wonderful  medicines. 
"  She  tells  me  she  has  studied  physic  in  Germany,"  wrote 
the  Marchioness,  "  but  I  think  it  must  have  been  after  the 
manner  of  the  Medecin  malgre  lui."  And,  indeed,  Tarente 
was  inclined  to  hold  with  Moliere's  "  doctor,  against  his 
will,"  that  physic  is  as  necessary  in  health  as  in  sickness. 


CHARLOTTE   AMELIE    DE   LA   TREMOILLE, 
PRINCESS    OF    ALTENBURG 

From  a  miniature  at  Middachten,  belonging  to  Count  Bentinck 
photographed  by  Mrs.  Aubrey  Le  Blond 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  207 

But  Sevigne  did  not  agree  with  her.  *'  I  am  quite  ready 
to  take  her  nostrums  when  I  am  ill ;  but  why  should  I 
when  I  am  well  ?  "  she  protested. 

When  illness  came,  however,  she  was  not  so  very  docile 
a  patient.  Medicinal  tea-drinking  was  then  the  vogue, 
and  the  Princess's  family  was  much  addicted  to  it.  Her 
nephew,  the  Landgraf,  so  she  said,  took  forty  cups  every 
day,  but  Sevign^  did  not  believe  her.  The  Princess 
herself  took  twelve.  Yet  when  she  prescribed  one  modest 
little  cup  for  the  Marquise,  her  friend  turned  from  it  with 
horror,  declaring  it  would  make  her  sick. 

The  Princess's  passion  for  medicaments  as  well 
as  her  Teutonic  wit  ("  she  did  not  lack  wit  of  a  kind*' 
wrote  Sevigne),  were  fully  compensated  for  by  the  fact 
that  she  too  had  a  daughter,  Charlotte  Amelie,  whom  at 
the  close  of  the  last  chapter  we  left  arriving  with  her 
mother  at  the  court  of  Denmark. 

Before  her  journey  to  Denmark,  numerous  husbands, 
among  them  two  future  kings  of  England,  William  of 
Orange  and  James,  Duke  of  York,  had  been  proposed  for 
Charlotte  Amelie.  But  at  Copenhagen  she  herself 
conquered  two  illustrious  hearts  :  George  of  Denmark,  the 
King's  brother,  a  handsome  gallant  prince,  and  Griffen- 
feld,  the  King's  minister,  a  wine  merchant's  son  who  had 
risen  rapidly  to  be  the  ablest  diplomat  in  Europe,  and  one 
of  the  wisest  statesmen  Denmark  has  ever  produced,  both 
fell  in  love  with  her. 

The  rival  claims  of  those  two  suitors  were  discussed  at 
length  in  the  linden  groves  of  Les  Rochers  and  in  Madame 
de  Sevign^'s  letters  to  her  daughter.  All  Griffenfeld's 
recommendations  were  eclipsed  by  his  not  being  a  gentle- 
man bom.  * '  The  mere  thought  of  it  is  enough  to  make 
one  faint,"  wrote  the  Marchioness^  and  Charlotte  Amelie 


2o8  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

shared  her  opinion,  defying  the  King  and  Queen,  who  had 
determined  that  she  should  marry  the  minister. 

To  the  Prince,  on  the  other  hand,  Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille 
was  ready  to  give  her  heart.  But  for  him  the  King  and 
Queen  had  more  ambitious  designs,  and  eventually,  in 
1687,  they  married  him  to  the  Princess  Anne,  afterwards 
Queen  of  England. 

Thus  disappointed,  Charlotte  Amelie  wept  and  entreated 
the  King  and  Queen  to  send  her  back  to  France.  But  her 
royal  cousins  refused  ;  and  the  distressed  maiden  was 
reduced  to  pouring  out  her  woes  to  her  mother  in 
voluminous  letters,  which  were  shown  to  Sevigne,  and 
commented  on  unfavourably  by  that  mistress  of  the 
epistolary  art.  Writing  to  her  daughter,  the  Marquise 
described  them  as  "  in  no  style  whatever,  my  dear,  and 
filled  with  dear  mamas  and  other  childish  epithets, 
although  she  is  twenty.'' 

A  war  between  Denmark  and  Sweden  soon  carried 
Mademoiselle's  two  suitors  to  the  front.  The  minister, 
whom  she  was  never  to  see  again,  took  a  dignified  leave 
of  his  lady,  entreating  her  to  grant  him  her  esteem 
if  not  her  love. 

A  year  later,  falsely  accused  by  his  enemies  at  court  of 
plotting  against  the  King,  this  eminent  statesman,  in  spite 
of  the  excellent  reforms  he  had  accomphshed  in  Denmark, 
was  tried  and  condemned  to  death.  Conducted  to  the 
scaffold,  he  was  about  to  lay  his  head  upon  the  block, 
when  a  messenger  arrived  to  commute  the  death  sentence 
into  one  of  banishment.  Some  years  later  Griff enf eld 
died  in  exile. 

Mdlle.  de  La  Tremoille  was  not  long  in  recovering 
from  her  attachment  to  the  Prince.  Her  ambition,  so  she 
confided  to  a  friend,  was  now  to  be  the  widow  of  a  Dutch- 


■M'.i^Mm*mM^Mimitim 


('/r./A  /inr  f/iipiJi 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  209 

man  with  a  castle.  Some  time  after,  a  gentleman  came  to 
her  saying  that  a  friend  of  his  was  a  Dutchman,  and  had  a 
castle,  and  that  he  was  so  deeply  in  love  with  Made- 
moiselle, that  if  she  married  him,  he  would  be  sure  to  die 
of  happiness  in  six  months.  Then  he  declared  himself  to 
be  the  friend,  and  Charlotte  Amelie  married  him  forthwith 
without  waiting  for  the  permission  of  her  family. 

La  bonne  Tarente  was  furious,  and  flew  to  her  neighbour 
for  consolation.  But  Sevigne  took  Charlotte  Amelie's 
part,  maintaining  that  she  had  done  quite  right  to  marry 
this  Count  Anthony  of  Altenburg  (Ochtensilbourg  she 
called  him  with  her  mania  for  distorting  German  names), 
who,  although  of  somewhat  equivocal  origin,  was  a  cousin 
of  the  King  of  Denmark,  and  the  richest  nobleman,  and 
the  most  perfect  gentleman  in  the  world. 

The  romantic  story  of  Count  Anthony's  birth  has 
formed  the  subject  for  several  novels.  His  father.  Count 
Anthony  Gunther,  had  in  early  years  contracted  a  secret 
marriage  with  a  noble  Hungarian  lady,  Elizabeth  von 
Ungnad,  of  great  beauty  and  many  accomplishments. 
But  the  Count's  mother  had  planned  for  her  son  a  still 
greater  alliance,  and,  through  one  of  her  courtiers, 
succeeded  in  gaining  possession  of  the  marriage  contract 
and  committing  it  to  the  flames.  The  lady  Elizabeth,  in 
despair  at  the  destruction  of  her  marriage  lines,  fled  to  a 
friend  at  whose  castle  she  gave  birth  to  the  son  who  was 
to  become  Charlotte  Amelie's  husband.  Count  Gunther 
married  a  princess  of  Holstein,  while  EHzabeth  was 
subsequently  united  to  a  nobleman  of  Friesland.  In 
later  years  Count  Gunther,  repenting  of  the  injury  he  had 
done  his  son,  obtained  the  Emperor's  permission  to 
restore  him  to  all  his  legitimate  rights.  Anthony  eventu- 
ally succeeded  his  father  as  Count  of  Altenburg,  and  took 

C.R.  p 


210  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

his  seat  in  the  Imperial  Diet,  a  privilege  only  accorded  to 
the  members  of  reigning  houses. 

Charlotte  Amelie,  by  marrying  Anthony,  had  therefore 
made  for  herself  a  very  brilliant  match.  "  Yet,"  wrote 
Madame  de  Sevigne,  "  all  Germany  groans  at  the  insult 
inflicted  on  the  escutcheon  of  la  bonne  Tarente  .  .  .  who 
is  very  angry."  But  after  a  while  the  Princess  was 
somewhat  pacified,  especially  when  there  arrived  letters 
telling  of  her  daughter's  wealth  and  happiness,  and  of 
the  grand  state  she  kept  in  her  husband's  dominions  on 
the  banks  of  the  Weser,  where  she  was  entertaining  the 
King  and  Queen  of  Denmark  with  all  their  court. 

But  alas  !  Count  Anthony  was  in  too  great  a  hurry  to 
keep  the  promise  he  had  made  when  first  urging  his  suit. 
Then  he  had  undertaken  to  make  his  wife  a  widow  six 
months  after  their  marriage.  He  anticipated  his  engage- 
ment by  eight  weeks.  Four  months  after  her  wedding 
the  Countess  of  Altenburg  had  realised  part  of  her 
ambition  :  she  was  the  widow  of  a  Dutchman,  but  not 
unhappily  v/ith  a  castle. 

For  Count  Anthony's  daughter  by  a  previous  marriage 
claimed  all  his  dominions  and  all  his  property  for  her 
husband,  and  persisted  in  the  claim  even  when  some 
months  later  the  widowed  Countess  gave  birth  to  a  son. 

Beset  by  eveiy  kind  of  persecution,  Charlotte  Amelie 
took  her  child  to  Vienna  to  plead  his  cause  at  the  Imperial 
Court.  There  she  arrived  travel-stained  and  weary, 
poverty  stricken  and  in  old-fashioned  clothes,  for  it  was 
only  by  selling  her  service  of  plate  that  she  had  succeeded 
in  collecting  enough  money  for  the  journey.  The 
Viennese  ladies-in-waiting  laughed  at  her  quaint  appear- 
ance. But  the  Empress  exclaimed  :  "  That  lady  is  the 
descendant  of  KJDgs,  and  it  is  rather  for  me  to  do  her 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  211 

homage  than  for  her  to  seek  me."  The  Empress  befriended 
her,  and  the  infant  Count  was  restored  to  his  father's 
dominions.  Charlotte  Amehe's  son  hved  to  have  a 
daughter,  Charlotte  Sophie,^  whose  hand,  after  being 
solicited  by  six  princes  of  reigning  German  houses,  was 
eventually  bestowed  on  Count  Bentinck,  the  second  son 
of  William  III/s  trusted  friend,  the  Earl  of  Portland. 

To  Charlotte  Amelie's  misfortunes  after  her  husband's 
death,  Madame  de  Sevigne's  letters  make  no  allusion. 
For  this  part  of  her  story  we  are  indebted  to  her  own 
Memoirs,  the  original  MS.  of  which  is  preserved  in  the 
Grand  Ducal  Library  at  Oldenburg.^ 

Five  years  after  Charlotte  Amelie's  marriage  the  inter- 
course between  her  mother  and  the  Marchioness  came  to 
an  end.  Then  by  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
in  1685,  the  Princess  de  Tarente  was  driven  from  France. 
Previous  to  that  year  she  had  been  free  to  exercise  her 
own  religion,  "  to  work  out  her  own  damnation  in  perfect 
liberty,"  as  her  quizzical  Catholic  neighbour  was  pleased 
to  word  it,  *'  and  to  indulge  in  as  many  fasts  and  retreats 
as  we  who  possess  the  reality."  But  in  1685,  the  good 
Tarente  returned  to  her  Fatherland,  to  Frankfort,  where 
she  died  of  smallpox  in  1692.  Years  after  they  had 
parted,  Madame  de  Sevigne  looked  back  tenderly  on  their 
friendship.  Writing  to  her  daughter  in  1689,  she  refers 
to  a  story  which  reminds  her  of  the  tales  told  by  "  the 
good  Princesse  de  Tarente." 


1  See  her    Life    and    Times,    by   Mrs.    Aubrey   Le   Bio  ad,   ia   two 
volumes,  published  by  Hutchinson,  191 1. 

2  See  ante,  184  and  note  2. 


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FROM  THE  CRUSADES 


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TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION    213 


CHAPTER  IX 

"a  lieutenant  of  MADAME  DEMAINTENON,"  LA  PRINCESSE 
DES  URSINS.      1642 (?) — 1722 

Since  the  fifteenth  century,  we  have  been  following 
exclusively  the  fortunes  of  the  eldest,  the  Thouars  branch 
of  the  La  Tremoille  family.  We  must  now  go  back  a 
hundred  years  to  the  time  when  from  Frangois  de  La 
Tremoille's  younger  sons,  Georges  and  Claude,  there 
sprang  the  houses  of  Olonne  and  Noirmoustier.  The 
Counts  of  Olonne,  endowed  later  with  the  marquisate  of 
Rohan,  continued  until  1708.  Perhaps  the  best  known 
among  them  was  Count  Louis,  who  was  the  friend  cf 
Saint  Evremond,  with  whom  he  corresponded  on  the 
relative  merits  of  Burgundy  and  Champagne.-^ 

The  house  of  Noirmoustier,  endured  but  a  few  years 
longer  than  that  of  Olonne.  It  died  out  in  1733.  Its 
barons  rose  to  be  marquises  in  the  sixteenth,  and  dukes  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  And  it  was  towards  the  end  of 
its  existence,  that  this  branch  of  the  family  produced  one 
of  the  most  notable  of  all  the  La  Tremoilles,  Marie  Anne 
de  Talleyrand,  Princesse  de  Chalais,  later  Princesse  des 
Ursins. 

The  La  Tremoille  tree  had  already  borne  two  women 
famous  in  war ;  it  now  brought  forth  one,  Madame  des 
Ursins,  who  was  no  less  renowned  in  diplomacy.  Had 
she  lived  in  our  time  she  might  have  been  described  as  a 

*  T£illemant  des  Reaux,  "  Historiettes,"  ed.  Monmerqu6,  II.  429. 


2i4  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

"militant/'  for  even  Sainte-Beuve,  although  he  relegates 
her  to  the  second  rank  among  stateswomen,  admits  that 
she  was  equal  to  upsetting  at  least  ten  governments. 

Three  clever  women,  Fran9oise  d'Aubigne,  Marquise  de 
Maintenon,  Sarah  Churchill,  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  and 
Marie  Anne  de  La  Tremoille,  Princesse  des  Ursins,  in  the 
late  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  centuries,  played 
important  parts  in  European  politics.  But  of  the  three, 
we  may  safely  assert  our  La  Tremoille  Princess  to  have 
been  the  cleverest.  The  numerous  volumes  of  her 
correspondence,  which  for  more  than  a  hundred  years 
have  been  appearing,  all  prove  the  significance  of  her 
action  during  that  critical  period  of  European  history 
extending  from  the  Treaty  of  Ryswick,  in  1698,  until  the 
death  of  Louis  XIV.  in  1715.  There  is  no  doubt  that  at 
this  time  her  diplomacy  contributed  to  introduce  the 
Bourbons  into  Spain,  and  to  establish  them  firmly  on  the 
Spanish  throne.-^ 

Marie  Anne  de  La  Tremoille  was  bom  about  1642,  the 
precise  year  is  uncertain.  Her  great  grandmother,  the 
famous  or  infamous  Madame  de  Sauves,  figures  in  the 
Memoirs  of  Marguerite  de  Valois  as  one  of  the  most 
attractive  and  one  of  the  most  unscrupulous  members  of 
Henry  UL's  dissolute  Court.  Charlotte  de  Semblangay, 
Madame  de  Sauves,  who,  for  her  second  husband,  married 
Francois  de  La  Tremoille,  Marquis  de  Noirmoustier,  must 
have  been  extremely  beautiful ;  a  veritable  Circe  Mar- 
guerite calls  her.     And  not  unnaturally  all  the  courtiers 

1  On  La  Princesse  des  Ursins  a  whole  library  has  been  written.  The 
works  chiefly  consulted  for  this  Chapter  are  :  the  Due  de  La  Tremoille's 
"  Madame  des  Ursins  et  la  Succession  en  Espagne  (six  vols.) ;  Geoflroy, 
"  Lettres  Inedites  de  la  Princesse  des  Ursins,"  (1859)  ;  and  "  Lettres 
Inedites  de  Madame  de  Maintenon  et  de  Madame  des  Ursins  "  (1826)  ; 
Fran9ois  Combes  "  La  Princesse  des  Ursins"  (1858)  ;  and  St.  Beuve's 
essay  in  the  "  Causeries  du  Lundi,"  V.,  319  et  seq. 


FRANCOIS  DE  LA  TREMOILLE,  MARQUIS   DE  NOIRMOUSTIER 
From  a  drawing  by  Benjamin  Foulon 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  215 

were  in  love  with  her,  but  especially  the  two  royal  princes, 
Marguerite's  brother,  Fran9ois,  Duke  of  Alen9on,  and  her 
husband,  Henry  of  Navarre.  Indeed,  Marguerite  would 
have  us  believe  that  it  was  Charlotte  who  first  caused  a 
coolness  between  herself  and  her  husband. 

Her  gift  for  intrigue,  Madame  de  Sauves  apparently 
bequeathed  to  her  grandson.  La  Princesse  des  Ursins' 
father,  Louis  de  La  Tremoille,  who  exercised  it  in  another 
direction.  Like  his  cousin,  Henry  Charles,  Louis  de  La 
Tremoille  was  an  eminent  Frondeur ;  and  as  such  he  is 
frequently  mentioned  in  the  brilliant  Memoirs  of  his 
friend,  the  Cardinal  de  Retz.  So  skilfully  did  Louis 
succeed  in  steering  the  barque  of  his  fortune  over  the 
shoals  and  quicksands  of  this  civil  war  that,  escaping 
disgrace  and  imprisonment,  he  succeeded  in  1650,  in 
securing  a  dukedom,  although,  on  account  of  his  participa- 
tion in  the  Fronde,  he  could  not  obtain  its  registration. 
So  the  title  of  Duke  of  Noirmoustier  remained  merely 
honorary  until  1707. 

Louis  married  Renee  Julie  Aubry,  who  belonged  to  one 
of  those  leading  legal  families  knovm  in  France  as  la 
noblesse  de  robe  ;  and  on  his  death,  in  1666,  he  left  six 
children  :  a  son  Antoine  Frangois,  styled  the  Duke  of 
Royan  and  Noirmoustier ;  a  second  son,  Joseph  Emmanuel, 
who  entered  the  Church  and  became  a  Cardinal ;  another 
son  Robert  who  died  young ;  and  three  daughters,  Marie 
Anne,  who  became  the  famous  Princesse  des  Ursins  ; 
Yolande  Julie,  Marquise  de  Royan  ;  and  Louise  Angelique, 
Duchesse  de  Lanti.^  While  plentifully  endowed  with 
brains,  this  generation  of  the  younger  La  TremoiUes  was 
curiously  afflicted  with  physical  infirmity,  for  the  Duke, 
after  an  attack  of  small-pox  became  blind,  Robert  was 

1  There  were  other  children  who  died  before  their  father. 


2i6  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

dumb,  the  Cardinal  a  hunchback,  and  the  Princesse  des 
Ursins  all  her  life  a  sufferer  from  defective  sight. 

The  adventurous  career  of  Marie  Anne  de  La  Tremoille 
began  young.  When  she  was  only  about  one  and  twenty 
her  husband,  Adrien  Blaise  de  Talleyrand,^  Prince  de 
Chalais,  killed  his  adversary  in  a  duel,  and  was  obliged  to 
flee  from  France.^  His  young  wife  followed  him,  and  for 
a  while  they  lived  in  Spain. 

During  the  four  years  of  her  married  life  in  Paris,  la 
Princesse  de  Chalais  had  made  her  debut  in  the  society 
of  the  Salons.  The  first  glory  of  the  greatest,  the 
H6tel  de  Rambouillet ,  had  by  that  time  faded,  but  other 
Salons  had  succeeded  it,  and  the  most  distinguished  was 
the  Hotel  d'Albret,  which  was  the  Salon  frequented  by 
La  Princesse  de  Chalais  and  her  husband.  Here  our 
Princess  used  to  meet  a  woman  who  was  eventually  to 
exert  a  powerful  influence  over  her  career,  Frangoise 
d'Aubigne,  then  the  poverty-stricken  widow  of  the  poet 
Scarron,  but  later  the  famous  Madame  de  Maintenon. 
In  after  days  when  both  these  great  ladies  had  attained 
to  the  height  of  their  fortune  they  used  to  talk  together  of 
these  early  experiences.  And  the  Princess  would  tell 
how  as  a  young  wife  at  the  Hdtel  d'Albret,  she  was  piqued 
to  see  the  hourgeoise  Madame  Scarron,  who  was  but  a  few 
years  her  senior,^  surrounded  by  great  wits  and  statesmen 
deferentially  hanging  on  to  this  young  nobody's  words 
while  she,  a  Princess,  was  left  to  chatter  with  the 
younger  members  of  the  company.  Then  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  would  retort  that,  after  all,  her  lot  in  those 
days  was  not  so  greatly  to  be  envied  for  often  did  she 

1  Of  the  same  family  as  the  great  diplomatist  I'Abbe  Talleyrand. 

2  The  date  of  this  duel  is  variously  stated,  but  it  probably  took 
place  between  1663  and  1666. 

^  She  was  born  in  1635. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION         217 

long  to  escape  from  the  high  seriousness  of  her  elders, 
and  to  join  in  the  noisy  prattle  of  those  of  her  own  age.-^ 

After  some  years  residence  in  Spain,  the  Prince  and 
Princess  de  Chalais  proceeded  to  Rome,  and  thence  they 
decided  to  go  to  Venice.  The  Prince  went  on  before  his 
wife  ;  but,  at  the  village  of  Maestro  not  far  from  Venice, 
he  was  taken  suddenly  ill  and  died  in  the  year  1670. 

It  was  at  Rome  that  Marie  Anne  received  the  news  of 
her  husband's  death,  and  at  Rome  she  continued  to 
reside,  although  there  was  now  nothing  to  prevent  her 
returning  to  France.  But  in  the  Holy  City  she  had 
already  made  many  influential  friends,  among  whom  was 
Cesar  d'Estrees,  Bishop  of  Laon,  the  representative  of 
Louis  XIV.  at  the  papal  court,  and  soon^  to  be  made  a 
Cardinal. 

As  was  frequently  the  custom  of  widows  in  those  days, 
the  Princess  for  some  years  after  her  husband's  death 
resided  in  a  convent.  But  her  retirement  did  not  prevent 
her  from  visiting  the  chief  salons  of  Roman  society, 
where  she  seems  to  have  been  greatly  admired.  Although 
not  exactly  a  beauty,  she  was  extremely  attractive,  with 
an  animated  expressive  countenance,  beautiful  blue  eyes, 
a  charming  mouth,  and  a  very  fine  figure.  Moreover, 
her  manners  were  ingratiating,  her  voice  melodious,  and 
her  conversation  highly  entertaining.  Dulness  and 
melancholy  she  could  not  abide,  and  she  sympathised 
with  her  sister  the  Duchesse  de  Lanti,  whose  first  require- 
ment when  engaging  a  gardener  was  that  he  should  look 
gay  and  be  cheerful. 

Brilliant  as  a  diamond,  the  Princess  had  something  of 
the  hardness  of  that  jewel.     Yet  to  her  first  husband  she 

^  Madame  de  Caylus,    "  Souvenirs  "    (Mich,   et  Poujoulat,    1839), 
Ser.  III.     Vol.  VIII.,  47S. 
2  1674. 


2i8  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

must  have  been  really  attached,  or  she  would  not  have 
committed  what  the  worldly  Madame  de  Sevigne  de- 
scribed as  "the  madness''  of  following  him  into  exile; 
and  her  efforts  to  make  the  fortunes  of  her  relatives 
would  indicate  that  she  was  not  devoid  of  ordinary 
family  affection.  But  that  she  lacked  any  true  tender- 
ness of  heart  may  be  seen  in  various  passages  of  her 
letters  :  for  example,  where  she  marvels  at  her  sister's 
grief  at  the  death  of  her  little  girl,  because  "  after  all  she 
was  not  her  only  child,"  or  where  on  the  death  of  a  baby 
of  two,  she  writes  to  the  parent :  "It  can  cause  you  no 
great  sorrow  for  at  that  age  you  could  not  know  whether 
the  infant  would  bring  you  joy  or  sadness."  Had  the 
Princess  herself  been  a  mother,  perhaps  she  might  have 
written  differently.  But,  as  we  shall  see,  ambition,  not 
love,  was  her  devouring  passion. 

And  this  lofty  ambition  she  was  soon  in  a  position  to 
gratify.  For  through  the  Cardinal  d'Estrees,  she  received 
a  proposal  of  marriage  from  the  first  noble  in  Rome,^ 
Flavio,  Duke  of  Bracciano,  a  grandee  of  Spain  and  the 
head  of  the  Roman  house  of  Orsini.  Ever  since  the 
twelfth  century,  when  leaving  their  native  town  of 
Spoleto,^  the  Orsini  had  settled  in  Rome,  they  had  been 
eminent  for  their  number,  their  valour,  their  wealth,  and 
the  strength  of  their  towers.  The  honours  of  the  Senate, 
of  the  Sacred  College,  and  even  of  the  Papacy^  had  been 
theirs  ;  they  had  furnished  with  queens,  France,  Naples 
and  Navarre  ;  and  during  their  prolonged  rivalry  with  the 
Colonna,  one  large  district  of  Rome  extending  along  the 

1  "  Le  premier  la'ique  de  Rome,"  St.  Simon  calls  him  ("  Memoires," 
ed.  Regnier,  V.,  41). 

2  Their  remoter  origin  may  have  been  French  and  they  may  have 
been  allied  to  the  famous  fifteenth  century  family  of  Ursins. 

*  No  less  than  six  times. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  I^EVOLUTION  219 

left  bank  of  the  Tiber,  from  the  Ponte  St.  Angelo  to  the 
Ponte  de  'Quattro  Capi,  was  little  more  than  an  Orsini 
fortified  camp. 

As  we  shall  see,  to  identify  Louis  XIV.  with  her  personal 
fortunes  was  ever  a  part  of  the  Princess's  policy,  and  so  it 
was  not  until  she  had  obtained  permission  from  "  the 
Great  King,"  that  Marie  Anne  de  La  Tremoille,  then 
about  thirty,  consented  to  wed  this  middle-aged  widower 
of  fifty-five.^ 

Hitherto  the  Princess  had  been  merely  a  leader  of 
society.  But  now  as  the  first  citizenness  of  Rome,  and 
as  mistress  of  a  leading  Roman  Salon,  she  began  to  serve 
a  political  apprenticeship  which  was  to  fit  her  for  a 
greater  career.  It  was  in  Rome  that  she  acquired  that 
knowledge  of  men's  hearts  which  rendered  her  one  of  the 
most  eminent  diplomatists  of  her  day.^  And  indeed, 
it  is  difficult  to  imagine  any  city  or  any  circle  better  fitted 
for  such  a  training.  Rome  the  centre  of  the  European 
western  world,  with  its  pathetic  ruins  of  so  many  civilisa- 
tions, with  its  relics  of  so  many  political  systems,  with  its 
magnificent  monuments,  the  scattered  fragments  of  which 
surpass  the  most  eloquent  description,  can  never  fail  to 
fire  even  the  most  sluggish  imagination. 

The  Rome  of  the  Duchess  of  Bracciano  was  beginning 
to  be  Rome  as  we  know  it.  For  several  decades  the  city 
had  been  enjoying  comparative  peace.  Freed  from 
foreign  invaders  by  the  retirement  of  the  French  from 
Italy  and  from  intestine  strife  by  the  cessation  of  the 
feuds  between  the  great  families,  Roman  nobles  had  had 
leisure  for  the  beautification  of  their  city  and  especially 

1  The  Duke  of  Bracciano  was  born  in  1620,  his  second  marriage  took 
place  in  1675. 

2  La  personne  du  monde  la  plus  propre  a  I'intrigue,  St.  Simon  calls 
her,  adding  et  qui  avail  passi  sa  vie  a  Rome. 


220  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

of  their  private  palaces.  In  1675,  the  great  artistic 
genius  of  the  age,  the  Michael  Angelo  of  the  century, 
Giovanni  Lorenzo  Bernini,  at  once  sculptor,  painter  and 
architect,  was  adorning  with  his  monuments  the  squares, 
the  palaces  and  the  churches  of  Rome.  Our  Duchess 
must  have  gazed  with  wonder  on  the  great  works  of  his 
hand,  on  the  grand  colonnade  before  St.  Peter's,  on  the 
Barberini  palace,  on  the  dolphins  of  the  ingenious  Barberini 
fountain  in  the  square,  and  on  the  elephant  bearing  its 
ancient  obelisk  in  front  of  Santa  Maria  sopra  Minerva. 
But  nowhere  did  the  great  artist  more  lavishly  display 
his  gifts  than  in  the  fountains  which  adorn  the  Piazza 
Navona,  where  the  Duchess  now  came  to  live. 

From  very  ancient  times  the  Piazza  Navona,  the  Circus 
Agonalis^  of  imperial  Rome,  had  been  the  bustling  centre 
of  civic  life.  And  now,  in  1675,  its  importance  had  by  no 
means  dwindled.  Here,  as  from  time  immemorial,  was 
still  transacted  the  business  of  those  lotteries  which  even 
to-day  figure  large  in  an  Italian's  life.  Here  on  high 
holidays,  the  square  was  flooded  for  the  celebration  of 
those  famous  Naumachia,  which  in  the  following  century 
were  to  entertain  the  exiled  Stuarts.  Here  in  the  balcony 
of  the  Orsini  palace,"  many  a  scene  of  pomp  and  splendour 
was  to  be  enacted  for  the  benefit  of  the  Roman  populace. 
This  great  mansion  stood  at  the  southern  angle  of  the 
square  on  the  site  now  occupied  by  the  Palazzo  Braschi. 
Close  at  hand  was  the  mutilated  statue  of  Patroclus,  on 
which  for  years  the  Romans  had  been  wont  to  hang 
satirical  remarks  about  their  fellow  citizens.  Owing  to 
the  skill  of  the  tailor  Pasquino  in  composing  these  gibes, 
the  statue  was  named  after  him,  the  lampoons  themselves 

1  Agona  became  Nagona,  hence  the  modern  Navona. 

2  Later,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  Orsini  resided,  as  they  do 
now,  in  part  of  the  Theatre  of  Marcellus. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  221 

christened  Pasquinadi,  and  the  name  of  the  sartorial  wit 
extended  to  the  neighbouring  palace,  so  that  the  Palace 
of  the  Orsini  became  the  Palazzo  Pasquino. 

A  circumstance  which  seems  to  be  strangely  discordant 
with  the  high  dignity  of  the  Orsini  family  appears  in  one 
of  the  Princess's  letters  where  we  find  that  the  outer 
rooms  of  the  palace,  probably  those  giving  on  the  square, 
were  let  to  some  thirty  shopkeepers.  Moreover,  these 
tenants  were  not  even  of  good  reputation,  for  years  later, 
after  the  Duke's  death,  and  as  the  result  of  police  investi- 
gations, one  shop  was  discovered  to  be  a  smugglers'  den, 
and  another  a  nest  of  gamblers.  Yet  they  and  the 
Duchess  depended  for  their  water-supply  on  the  self-same 
fountain,  that  in  the  palace  court-yard  ;  Bernini's  foun- 
tains in  the  square  were  apparently  only  for  show.  And 
we  can  well  imagine  the  tradesmen's  wives,  bearing  bronze 
pitchers  poised  skilfully  on  their  heads,  eternally  gossip- 
ing round  the  fountain  in  the  court-yard. 

Notwithstanding  its  shop  frontage,  the  Palazzo  Pasquino 
was  one  of  the  most  princely  residences  in  Rome,  filled 
with  costly  and  countless  tapestries,  pictures,  statues  and 
all  manner  of  artistic  treasures.  And  here  the  brilliant 
Duchess,  in  all  the  maturity  of  her  dazzling  charms,  opened 
a  salon  which  became  a  second  Hotel  de  Rambouillet.  To 
the  Pasquino  Palace  for  some  seventeen  years  flocked  all 
that  was  most  distinguished  in  Rome, — Cardinals,  princes, 
ambassadors,  and  great  ladies,  attracted  by  the  wit  and 
the  charm  of  Madame  la  Duchesse  and  of  her  sister, 
Louise  Angelique  whom  she  had  married  to  an  Italian 
nobleman,  the  Duke  of  Lanti.  The  comedies  and 
concerts  given  by  the  Duchess  of  Bracciano  at  the  Palazzo 
Pasquino  were  the  great  events  of  Roman  society,  talked 
of  and  written  about  for  months  beforehand.     In  a  letter 


222  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

to  the  Duchess  of  Lanti  in  1685,  the  Princess  mentions  as 
one  of  her  visitors  a  Mr.  Talbot.  This  may  have  been  the 
famous  Dick  Talbot,  Earl  of  Tyrconnel/  a  veritable  Don 
Juan  and  a  bigoted  Roman  Catholic,  who  was  sus- 
pected of  attempting  to  murder  Cromwell  and  of 
being  implicated  in  the  Popish  Plot.  For  the  latter 
offence  he  was  in  exile  between  1679  and  1685,  and 
may  very  likely  have  visited  the  Duchess  of  Bracciano 
in  Rome. 

In  the  gay  salon  of  the  Palazzo  Pasquino  there  was  one 
person  who  was  not  happy.  The  master  of  the  house  felt 
himself  overshadowed  by  his  brilliant  and  imposing  wife, 
who  was  also  his  intellectual  superior.  Moreover,  the 
elaborate  costly  entertainments  the  Duchess  devised 
tended  to  increase  the  financial  embarassments  from 
which  for  some  years  the  Duke  had  been  suffering  ;  for 
his  estates  though  vast  were  heavily  mortgaged.  These 
causes  probably  led  to  an  estrangement  between  husband 
and  wife  which,  by  the  year  1685,  had  become  so  serious, 
that  the  Duchess  was  glad  to  leave  her  husband  and  to 
visit  France. 

Between  that  date  and  1698,  when  the  Duke  died,  his 
wife  spent  long  periods  in  her  native  land.  She  wrote 
frequently  to  her  friends  in  Italy  from  Paris,  Versailles, 
Fontainebleau,  Vichy,  and  also  from  St.  Germain,  whither 
she  had  gone  to  be  present  at  the  confinement  of  her 
friend,  the  exiled  Queen  of  England.  During  these 
visits  our  Duchess  was  careful  to  cultivate  court  friend- 
ships, renewing  her  acquaintance  with  Frangoise 
d'Aubigne,  now  Marquise  de  Maintenon  and  wife  of 
Louis  XIV.,  ingratiating  herself  with  Le  Grand  Monarque 
himself,  and  with  his  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  le  Marquis 

1  See  "Dictionary  of  National  Biography,"  under  Talbot,  Richard. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  223 

de  Torcy,  and  impressing  all  these  personages  with  her 
ability  and  her  desire  to  serve  France. 

One  of  her  most  valuable  friends  at  the  French  court 
was  La  Marechale  de  Noailles,  who,  despite  her  large 
family  of  twenty-one  children,  was  ever  ready  to  further 
her  friend's  fortunes  at  the  French  court.  Adrien 
Maurice,  the  eldest  of  the  twenty-one,  had  married 
Madame  de  Maintenon's  favourite  niece.  Mademoiselle 
d'Aubigne.  So  Madame  de  Noailles  was  a  powerful 
person  at  Versailles  ;  and  while  she  did  her  best  for  the 
Princess,  Madame  des  Ursins  in  return  tried  to  marry  off 
some  of  the  Marechale's  daughters.  "  If  only  you  will 
get  me  this  appointment  in  Spain,'*  she  wrote,  "  at 
Madrid  I  can  find  husbands  for  a  dozen  of  your  girls." 

Returning  to  Rome,  the  Princess  there  followed  the 
same  policy  of  self-advancement  which  she  had  pursued 
in  France.  Thus  she  succeeded  in  gaining  a  footing  at  the 
papal  court,  where  the  Pope,  Innocent  XII.,  declared  her 
advice  to  be  better  than  that  of  many  cardinals,  and  at  the 
Spanish  embassy,  where  Cardinal  Portocarrero,  Bishop 
of  Toledo,  became  her  intimate  friend.  It  is  impossible 
to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  these  friendships,  which 
were  later  to  exercise  a  powerful  influence  not  only  on  the 
Princess's  personal  career,  but  on  the  course  of  European 
politics.-^  For  at  Rome  and  elsewhere,  these  friendships 
were  to  prove  very  useful  to  the  cause  of  France. 

It  was  Portocarrero  who,  shortly  before  the  Duke's 
death,  effected  a  reconciliation  between  the  Princess  and 
her  husband,  so  that  Bracciano  when  he  died  left  his 
widow  all  his  vast  domains  which,  however,  were 
heavily  burdened  with  debt.  Moreover,  on  her  husband's 
decease,  Marie  Anne  found  herself  involved  in  a  law  suit 

>  See  post,  228. 


224  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

with  a  rich  Roman  noble,  Don  Livio  Odescalchi,  who 
contested  the  succession  contending  that  the  Duke  had 
adopted  him  as  his  son  and  heir.  The  legal  proceedings 
continued  for  some  years,  during  which  the  Duchess,  as 
was  her  wont  with  those  who  opposed  her,  wrote  numerous 
letters  to  her  friends  which  were  most  damaging  to  her 
adversary,  whom  she  did  not  hesitate  to  describe  as 
ce  crasseux  de  prince.  In  the  end,  and  partly  through 
the  intervention  of  Louis  XIV.,  Don  Livio  purchcLsed 
Orsini's  country  estates  and  the  title  of  Duke  of  Bracciano 
for  2,000,000  livres,  while  leaving  to  the  Duchess  the 
Palazzo  Pasquino  with  its  furniture  and  the  right  to  style 
herself  Princess  Orsini,  or,  as  she  was  more  commonly 
called  "  Princesse  des  Ursins." 

After  her  husband's  death  the  Princesses  relations  with 
the  French  court  became  closer,  and  her  salon  more 
political.  Now,  almost  equally  with  the  Ambassador, 
she  was  regarded  as  the  representative  of  France  in  Rome. 
In  1699,  Louis  XIV.  granted  her  a  pension.  And  about 
the  same  time  she  was  permitted  to  affix  the  arms  of 
France  to  the  gates  of  her  palace,  a  privilege  which  the 
King  had  withdrawn  from  Bracciano  on  account  of  his 
having  taken  the  Pope's  part  in  a  dispute  about  the 
status  of  the  French  ambassador  in  Rome. 

Of  the  restoration  of  the  French  arms  to  her  palace 
wall,  Madame  des  Ursins  made  a  great  public  event.  No 
pomp  or  pageantry  was  omitted.  The  occasion  was  a 
high  day  and  a  holiday  in  Rome.  In  the  morning  a  vast 
throng  assembled  in  the  piazza  to  listen  in  silence  while 
the  praises  of  Le  Grand  Monarque  were  read  in  the  palace 
balcony.  In  the  evening  the  halls  of  the  Palazzo  Pasquino 
were  crowded  with  a  distinguished  company  of  great 
Roman   ladies,    ambassadors,    cardinals    and   cavallieri, 


MARIE   ANNE   DE   LA  TREMOILLE,  PRINCESSE   DES    URSINS 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  225 

before  whom  artistes  from  the  Pope's  own  chapel  per- 
formed a  cantata  specially  composed  and  representing 
three  majestic  personages,  Glory,  Religion  and  the  Tiber. 

The  French  Ambassador,  the  Prince  of  Monaco,  who 
was  an  intimate  friend  of  Madame  des  Ursins,  did  not 
neglect  to  send  "the  Great  King"  a  detailed  account 
of  all  these  proceedings. 

With  Monaco's  predecessor  at  Rome,  the  Cardinal  de 
Bouillon,  Madame  des  Ursins  had  been  on  anything  but 
amicable  terms,  for  she  had  a  faculty  for  making  enemies 
as  well  as  friends.  Complaints  of  "  this  little  man  who  is 
craftier  than  you  could  possibly  imagine,"  fill  pages  of  the 
Princess's  letters  to  la  Marechale.  Involved  in  this 
quarrel  with  the  Cardinal  was  the  Princess's  brother,  the 
Abbe  de  Noirmoustiers,  whom  she  had  brought  to  Rome 
and  raised  to  an  influential  position  only,  as  she  com- 
plained, that  he  might  side  with  "  her  implacable  enemy  " 
against  her. 

According  to  the  Duke  of  Berwick,^  James  II. 's  natural 
son,  who  visited  the  Princess  in  Rome,  the  quarrel  turned  on 
the  most  trivial  questions,  mere  matters  of  etiquette  :  the 
Cardinal  felt  slighted  because,  at  the  time  of  Bracciano's 
death,  he  had  been  left  to  dine  alone  in  an  ante-chamber 
of  the  Palazzo  Pasquino,  and  had  not,  as  etiquette 
required,  been  invited  to  the  Duchess's  room,  there  to 
partake  of  his  repast  at  the  foot  of  her  bed.  On  her  part, 
the  Duchess  was  furious  because  the  Cardinal  had  denied 
her  what  she  claimed  as  the  special  privilege  of  the  Orsini 
family,  the  right  to  hang  her  palace  with  purple,  the 
mourning  colour  of  kings  and  cardinals.  We  suspect, 
however,  that  the  true  cause  of  the  quarrel  lay  deeper 

1  "Memoires  du   Mar^chal  de  Berwick,"  ed.    Mich,  et   Poujoulat, 
Ser.  III.,  Vol.  v.,  345. 

C.R.  Q 


226  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

than  these  querulous  quibblings,  and  that  it  sprang  from 
a  very  natural  jealousy  between  the  accredited  ambassador 
of  France  and  the  highly  trusted  but  unofficial  agent  of 
the  French  King.  A  similar  coolness  arose  when  the 
Princess  went  to  Spain,  and  in  both  cases  she  obtained 
the  recall  of  her  enemy. 

Bouillon's  successor,  the  Prince  of  Monaco,  profiting 
from  his  predecessor's  experience,  was  careful  not  to 
openly  oppose  this  all-powerful  lady  ;  at  the  same  time, 
determining  not  to  be  under  her  thumb,  he  declined  her 
repeated  invitation  to  reside  in  her  palace ;  and  he  adroitly 
urged  as  his  reason  just  that  consideration  which  such  a 
queen  of  intriguers  would  most  readily  appreciate,  viz. : 
that  a  public  association  with  the  Ambassador  might 
weaken  the  indirect  influence  which  it  was  important  for 
her  to  exercise  in  favour  of  France. 

A  time  was  now  approaching  when  Madame  des  Ursins 
was  to  need  the  help  of  every  friend  and  the  employment 
of  every  influence,  whether  secret  or  avowed.  For  in  the 
crisis  to  which  Europe,  in  the  last  years  of  the  century, 
was  rapidly  hastening,  the  Princess  perceived  a  field  for 
the  employment  of  her  diplomatic  gifts  far  wider  than  any 
upon  which  she  had  entered  hitherto.  And  here  in  our 
personal  history  we  must  pause  for  a  moment  to  take  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  condition  of  Europe  in  1698  and 
1699. 

In  those  years  the  great  Spanish  Empire  upon  which  the 
sun  never  set,  that  vast  assemblage  of  states  built  up 
throughout  a  hundred  years  by  an  accumulation  of 
inheritances,  was  threatened  with  dissolution.  The  child- 
less weakling  who  now  sat  upon  the  throne  of  Charles  V. 
and  Philip  II.  was  swiftly  sinking  into  his  grave,  while 
some  half-dozen  great  princes  of  Europe  with  covetous 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  227 

eyes  were  watching  his  decline,  eager  to  pounce  on  his 
possessions.  The  Duke  of  Savoy,  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
the  King  of  Portugal,  the  Electoral  Prince  of  Bavaria,  the 
Emperor  Leopold  and  Louis  XIV.  all  considered  they  had 
a  right  to  don  the  crown  about  to  fall  from  the  feeble 
head  of  King  Charles  II.  of  Spain. 

But  outside  this  group  of  claimants  there  was  a  power 
which  had  already  asserted  its  strength  in  Europe  and  was 
prepared,  if  need  were,  to  do  so  again.  The  power  or  twin 
powers  of  Holland  and  England,  now  united  under  one 
ruler,  WiUiam,  Stadtholder  of  Holland  and  King  of 
England,  were  determined  to  prevent  any  one  European 
prince  from  entering  into  the  undivided  inheritajice  of 
Philip  II.  These  maritime  powers,  as  they  were  called  in 
the  diplomatic  parlance  of  the  day,  negotiated  the  two 
partition  treaties  of  1698  and  1700.  By  the  first  the 
Spanish  dominions  were  divided  between  Louis'  son,  the 
Dauphin,  the  Emperor's  son,  the  Archduke  Charles,  and 
the  Electoral  Prince  of  Bavaria,  whose  share  included  the 
kingdom  of  Spain.  Only  a  few  months  after  the  signing 
of  this  treaty  by  France,  England  and  Holland,  the  death 
of  the  Electoral  Prince  rendered  another  treaty  necessary. 
Therefore,  at  the  Hague  in  March,  1700,  the  three  Powers 
executed  another  partition  of  the  Spanish  dominions 
between  the  two  remaining  princes,  the  Dauphin  and  the 
Archduke  Charles,  to  the  latter  being  assigned  the  crown 
of  Spain. 

But  while  the  three  northern  powers  were  thus  carving 
up  the  Spanish  dominions,  the  Spaniards  themselves 
had  their  own  views  as  to  the  fate  of  their  kingdom  and 
its  dependencies ;  and  one  idea  they  held  most  strongly  : 
they  were  determined  that  never  should  the  monarchy 
of  Philip  II.    be   dismembered,    and    that   whosoever, 


228  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

whether  Habsburg  or  Bourbon,  succeeded  to  a  part, 
must  necessarily  succeed  to  the  whole. 

Simultaneously  therefore  with  the  negotiations  at  the 
Hague  were  proceeding  others  at  Madrid.  These  were 
carried  on  by  the  French  and  the  Austrian  Ambassadors 
in  the  interests,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  Bourbon,  and  on 
the  other  of  the  Habsburg  claimant.  Each  ambassador 
was  endeavouring  to  persuade  Charles  II.  to  make  a  will 
bequeathing  the  whole  of  his  dominions  to  the  claim- 
ant he  (the  ambassador)  supported — in  the  case  of 
Comte  d'Harcourt,  the  French  Ambassador,  it  was  the 
Dauphin  or  one  of  his  sons ;  in  the  case  of  Comte 
d'Harrach,  the  Austrian  Ambassador,  it  was  the  Archduke 
Charles. 

Louis  XIV.  therefore  was  conducting  two  sets  of 
negotiations  in  contrary  directions  ;  whUe  at  the  Hague 
he  was  promising  the  maritime  powers  that  the  Spanish 
dominions  should  not  pass  into  one  hand,  at  Madrid  he 
was  straining  every  effort  to  obtain  the  whole  inheritance 
for  a  member  of  his  family.  And  in  the  end  it  was  the 
French  Ambassador  at  Madrid  who  won  the  day.  In 
addition  to  his  own  brains,  which  were  some  of  the 
sharpest,  Comte  d'Harcourt  was  able  to  employ  in  the 
French  interest  the  influence  of  Portocarrero,  who  had 
now  returned  to  Madrid  from  Rome,  where  La  Princesse 
des  Ursins  had  won  him  for  the  French  cause.  At  length 
the  scale  was  finally  turned  in  favour  of  France,  by  a 
letter  received  by  Charles  II.  from  the  Pope,  Innocent  XII. 
He,  too,  Madame  des  Ursins  had  won  for  France,  and  now 
he  wrote  advising  the  King  to  leave  his  dominions  to  the 
grandson  of  Louis  XIV.  Charles  II.,  who  was  a  devoted 
son  of  Mother  Church,  obeyed  the  Pope's  behest,  and  on 
October  2nd,  1700,  made  a  wiU  leaving  to  Philip,  Duke  of 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  229 

Anjou,  the  Dauphin's  second  son,  the  monarchy  of  Spain 
with  all  its  dependencies. 

A  month  later,  on  November  ist,  Charles  died.  There 
were  few  who  knew  the  contents  of  the  King's  will.  The 
French  Ambassador  himself  was  ignorant  of  the  success 
of  his  intrigues. 

The  announcement  of  a  decision  which  was  of  such  vast 
importance  not  only  for  Spain  but  for  the  whole  of  western 
Europe  attracted  to  the  palace  a  curious  crowd.  The 
will  was  opened  in  the  Council  Chamber  of  the  late  King, 
in  the  presence  of  his  Junta  or  Cabinet.  What  happened 
outside  has  been  graphically  described  by  St.  Simon.^ 
"  All  the  rooms  adjoining  the  Council  Chamber,  where  the 
will  was  being  read,"  he  writes,  '*  were  crowded  almost  to 
suffocation.  The  foreign  ambassadors  were  conspicuous 
as  they  pushed  eagerly  forward,  each  anxious  to  be  the 
first  to  inform  his  court  of  the  choice  made  by  the  King. 
Blecourt  ^  was  there,  for  he  was  as  ignorant  as  they  re- 
specting the  secret.  Count  d'Harrach,  the  Emperor's 
ambassador,  was  standing  just  in  front  of  the  door  of  the 
Council  Chamber.  He  bore  himself  triumphantly,  for  he 
relied  upon  the  will's  being  in  favour  of  the  Archduke, 
and  his  hopes  for  his  own  future  were  high.  At  last  the 
door  opened  for  a  moment  and  there  appeared  the  Duke 
of  Abrantes,  a  man  greatly  feared  for  his  malicious  wit. 
He  had  slipped  out  of  the  Council  Chamber  as  soon  as  the 
reading  of  the  will  was  over  for  the  enjoyment  of  dis- 
closing the  great  secret.  Instantly  he  was  beset  by  the 
crowd.  He  gazed  calmly  upon  them,  but  maintained 
a  solemn  silence.  Blecourt  approached.  The  Duke 
regarded  him  vacantly,  and  then,  turning  away  his  head, 

*  In  his  "  Memoires,"  ed.  Regnier,  VII.,  291 — 292. 

*  The  French  Ambassador  who  had  succeeded  Harcourt. 


230  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

appeared  to  be  searching  for  some  other  person.  This 
action  surprised  Blecourt,  and  was  interpreted  by  all  as 
auguring  ill  for  France.  Suddenly  the  Duke  seemed  to 
become  aware  of  the  presence  of  Count  d'Harrach.  A 
joyful  expression  illumined  his  countenance,  and  throwing 
himself  into  his  arms,  he  exclaimed  aloud  in  Spanish, 
*  Senor,  it  is  with  great  pleasure  ' — here  he  made  a 
pause  and  again  embraced  him,  *  Yes,  Seiior,  it  is  with 
heartfelt  joy  that  from  henceforth  ' — here  he  made  a 
second  pause.  '  It  is  indeed  with  infinite  satisfaction 
that  I  now  part  from  you  and  take  a  final  leave  of  the 
august  house  of  Austria.'  Count  d'Harrach's  astonish- 
ment and  indignation  deprived  him  of  all  power  of 
utterance.  He  stood  quite  still  for  a  moment,  and  then 
left  the  room,  fuming  with  rage  and  disappointment." 

In  London  and  Amsterdam,  in  Vienna  and  Rome,  where 
no  one  knew  of  Louis'  intrigues  at  Madrid,  the  great 
question  was  whether  the  French  King,  in  defiance  of  the 
Partition  Treaty,  would  accept  for  his  grandson  the 
bequest  of  Charles  II.  Madame  des  Ursins,  who  had  so 
effectually  seconded  Harcourt's  scheming,  can  have  had 
no  doubt  as  to  the  result  of  that  conference,  which  Louis, 
as  soon  as  the  contents  of  the  will  were  communicated  to 
him,  made  a  point  of  holding  with  his  ministers.  And 
there  can  have  been  no  surprise  in  that  astute  lady's  mind 
when  shortly  afterwards  she  heard  that  Louis  had  sum- 
moned his  grandson  in  order  to  declare  to  him  his  decision 
in  the  presence  of  the  whole  court.  "  Sir,"  said  Louis, 
pompously  addressing  the  young  Prince,  "  the  King  of 
Spain  has  made  you  King  ;  the  grandees  invite  you  ;  the 
people  long  for  you,  and  I  consent ;  to  be  a  good  Spaniard 
will  henceforth  be  your  first  duty ;  but  remember  that 
you   were   born   a   Frenchman."    On   November   24th 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  231 

Philip  V.  was  proclaimed  King  of  Spain  ;  and  a  few  days 
later,  on  December  4th,  the  new  King,  then  a  youth  of 
seventeen,  set  forth  for  his  dominions,  his  grandfather 
bidding  him  farewell  in  majestic  words  which  have 
become  famous  :  "  Go,  henceforth  the  Pyrenees  have 
ceased  to  exist/' 

At  first  it  seemed  as  if  Europe  would  quietly  acquiesce 
in  the  accession  of  a  Bourbon  to  the  throne  of  Spain. 
Europe  was  tired  of  war,  and  especially  England,  which 
hitherto  had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  great  struggle  against 
Louis  XIV.  In  England,  William,  who  would  willingly 
have  reopened  the  conflict,  was  becoming  more  and  more 
unpopular,  and  the  Tories,  who  were  then  the  peace  party, 
were  in  the  ascendant.  Had  not  Louis  himself  committed 
an  extraordinary  blunder  there  might  have  been  no  war 
of  the  Spanish  succession.  On  September  6th,  1701,  the 
exiled  King,  James  II.,  died  at  St.  Germain,  and  straight- 
way, Louis,  violating  a  clause  in  the  Treaty  of  Ryswick 
which  pledged  him  to  withdraw  all  support  from  the 
exiled  Stuarts,  recognised  his  son  James  as  King  of 
England.  Instantly  English  apathy  vanished.  Whigs  and 
Tories  joined  in  condemning  the  action  of  the  French  court. 
From  London  and  from  every  corner  of  the  realm  resounded 
a  cry  for  war.  Assured  of  England's  help,  Holland  and 
Austria  took  up  arms  ;  the  Archduke  Charles  having 
formally  laid  claim  to  the  Spanish  monarchy  on 
May  15th,  1702,  a  declaration  of  war  was  published 
simultaneously  by  England,  Holland  and  the  Empire. 

In  the  direction  of  this  war  and  indeed  in  the  course  of 
European  history  for  the  next  fourteen  years  Madame 
des  Ursins  was  to  play  a  prominent  part.  On  hearing 
that  the  Great  Monarch  had  accepted  King  Charles's 
bequest  for  his  grandson,  the  Princess  had  written  con- 


232  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

gratulating  Louis  on  the  *'  great  event,"  which,  as  she  put 
it,  "  seemed  to  have  happened  expressly  in  order  to  raise 
His  Majesty's  glory  far  above  the  imagination  of  man- 
kind/' At  the  same  time  in  a  letter  to  Torcy  she  rejoiced 
over  the  accomplishment  of  that  affair,  which  for  fear  of  the 
misfortunes  it  might  give  rise  to  had  caused  all  Europe  to 
tremble,  but  was  now  by  the  merit  of  the  King  alone,  the 
sovereign  arbiter,  arranged  for  the  peace  of  Christendom. 
"  What  glory,  O  my  God,"  she  concluded,  ''  but  also 
what  moderation  !  " 

In  the  accomplishment  of  this  great  affair  Madame  des 
Ursins  was  not  slow  to  discern  a  way  to  her  own  advance- 
ment, and  in  what  manner  with  admirable  lucidity  she 
explained  in  a  letter  to  la  Marechale.  Philip  must  be 
provided  with  a  wife,  wrote  this  wily  intriguante,  and  as 
Philip  himself  was  but  a  youth  his  wife  also  must  be 
young.  She  would  require  therefore  an  accomplished 
woman  of  the  world  to  direct  her,  one  preferably  who 
should  be  devoted  to  French  interests  and  willing  to 
exercise  French  influence  at  Madrid  ;  but  who  was  so 
fitted  to  occupy  such  a  post  as  the  writer  of  this  letter  ? 
Had  she  not  effectively  proved  her  skill  in  diplomacy  and 
her  devotion  to  the  interests  of  France  ?  Was  she  not 
also  the  widow  of  a  grandee  of  Spain,  and  pecuHarly  fitted 
for  life  at  the  Spanish  court  by  her  knowledge  of  the 
language  and  her  earlier  residence  in  the  country  ? 

As  to  the  bride  who  should  be  chosen  for  the  young 
King,  Madame  des  Ursins  also  had  her  views. 

And  she  suggested  Marie  Louise,  second  daughter  of 
Victor  Amadeus,  Duke  of  Savoy,  sister  to  the  graceful 
and  popular  Marie  Adelaide,  the  wife  of  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy,  the  Dauphin's  eldest  son. 

The  letter  containing  all  these  proposals  la  Marechale 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  233 

showed  to  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who  doubtless  com- 
municated its  contents  to  the  King.  And  Louis  seriously 
considered  them.  The  eminent  success  of  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy's  marriage  with  Marie  Adelaide,  who  was  a 
great  favourite  at  court,  inclined  the  King  to  select 
another  bride  from  that  family.  Moreover,  as  Victor 
Amadeus  was  aspirant  to  the  crown  of  Spain,  the  alliance 
would  have  the  advantage  of  uniting  two  claims.  And 
so  Madame  des  Ursins'  advice  was  adopted ;  and  the 
King  decided  to  marry  his  grandson  to  the  Savoyard 
Princess,  and  to  make  Madame  des  Ursins  her  chief 
lady-in-waiting  or  Camerera  Major. 

Early  in  May,  1701,  the  news  of  her  prospective  appoint- 
ment reached  Madame  des  Ursins.  On  June  20th  she 
received  from  His  Catholic  Majesty,  King  Philip  V.,  the 
official  announcement  that  she  had  been  appointed 
Camerera  Major  and  had  been  chosen  to  accompany  his 
bride  to  Madrid.  But  she  had  already  begun  her  prepara- 
tions for  departure,  and  had  ordered  her  travelling  coach 
and  the  liveries  for  her  servants. 

On  September  nth  Philip  married  Marie  Louise  -^  by 
proxy  at  Turin.  The  bride  was  but  a  child  of  thirteen, 
very  young  to  be  sent  abroad  in  such  troubled  times  and 
into  such  a  disturbed  country.  Nevertheless,  only  a  few 
days  after  the  wedding,  accompanied  by  her  confessor  and 
a  suite  of  Italian  ladies  and  gentlemen,  she  set  forth  for 
her  husband's  kingdom.  At  Villafranca,  a  port  of  Savoy, 
not  far  from  Nice,  the  Queen  met  Madame  des  Ursins,  and 
the  first  impression  which  this  great  lady  made  upon  the 
royal  bride  appears  to  have  been  favourable.  From 
Villafranca  the  company  proceeded  by  sea  to  Antibes. 

^  By  her  mother,  Anne  d'Orl^ans,  daughter  of  Henrietta  Maria  of 
England,  and  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  Marie  Louise  was  the  great-grand- 
daughter of  our  King  Charles  I. 


234  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

There  they  were  detained  by  contrary  winds,  which 
pursued  them  so  furiously  when  they  continued  their 
voyage  that  the  Queen,  who  was  a  bad  sailor,  suffered 
greatly.  Therefore,  at  the  instance  of  Madame  des 
Ursins,  Louis  gave  them  permission  to  continue  their 
journey  by  land.  At  Figueras,  on  the  Spanish  frontier, 
the  Camerera  Major  insisted  on  the  return  to  Savoy  of 
the  Queen's  Italian  suite.  Thereby  she  completely  lost 
her  little  mistress's  favour  ;  and  it  was  weeks  before  she 
could  win  it  back  again.  The  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  the 
Queen's  sister,  on  her  way  to  France,  had  submitted 
without  a  murmur ;  but  the  Queen  was  furious  at  thus 
being  left  with  strangers,  and  she  took  a  dislike  to  Madame 
des  Ursins,  which  it  took  all  the  Camerera  Major's  tact 
to  overcome. 

It  was  at  Figueras,  too,  that  the  King  met  his  bride. 
And  not  unnaturally  he  found  her  in  a  very  bad  temper, 
which  considerably  marred  the  completion  of  the  wedding 
ceremonies.  At  least,  such  is  the  story  which  St.  Simon 
says  was  told  by  the  Marquis  de  Louville,  who  as  the 
young  King's  adviser  had  accompanied  him  to  Spain. 

That  Philip,  who  had  no  reason  for  sharing  his  wife's 
dislike  of  her  Camerera  Major,  soon  became  attached  to 
Madame  des  Ursins,  we  may  learn  from  an  amusing  letter 
in  which  the  latter  described  her  new  duties. 

"  How  Madame  de  Maintenon  would  laugh,"  she 
writes,  "  if  she  knew  all  the  petty  offices  I  have  to  perform. 
Tell  her,  I  entreat  3''ou,  that  it  is  I  who  have  the  honour  to 
present  the  King  with  his  dressing-gown  when  he  goes 
to  bed,  and  to  give  him  his  slippers  when  he  rises.  This  I 
might  not  object  to  ;  but  every  evening  when  the  King 
enters  the  Queen's  chamber,  the  Count  of  Beneventum 
entrusts  me  with  his  Majesty's  sword  .  .  .  and  with  a 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  235 

lamp  which  I  generally  upset  over  my  clothes.  Really, 
it  is  too  ridiculous.  The  King  would  never  get  up  if  I 
did  not  draw  his  curtains  ;  and  it  would  be  sacrilege  for 
any  one  else  to  enter  the  room  when  the  King  and  Queen 
are  in  bed.  The  other  day  the  lamp  went  out  because  I 
had  spilt  half  the  oil ;  I  did  not  know  where  the  windows 
were,  having  reached  the  place  the  previous  night  when 
they  were  closed  ;  I  thought  I  should  have  broken  my 
nose  against  the  wall,  and  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  there 
were  the  King  of  vSpain  and  I  knocking  up  against  the 
furniture  feeling  for  the  shutters."  ^ 

This  meticulous  ceremonial  was  a  part  of  that  elaborate 
etiquette  which  rendered  the  Spanish  court  the  dullest 
place  in  the  world.  The  wife  of  a  previous  French 
Ambassador  at  Madrid  had  described  the  gloom  of 
existence  there  as  so  crushing  that  on  entering  the  Queen's 
chamber  one  seemed  to  feel  it,  to  see  it,  and  to  touch  it. 
This  gloom  Madame  des  Ursins  set  herself  to  dissipate  by 
employing  all  the  ingenuity  which  she  had  formerly 
displayed  in  her  Roman  salon,  in  organising  concerts, 
balls  and  comedies  for  the  amusement  of  the  royal  couple. 
Italian  music  was  then  beginning  to  be  the  vogue,  and  it 
was  the  Princess  who  first  introduced  it  into  Spain.  The 
chief  amusements  of  Philip's  predecessors  seem  to  have 
been  hunting  and  the  watching  of  those  terrible  autos- 
da-fe,  relics  of  mediaeval  barbarism  which  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  still  retained.  "  Charles  II.,"  writes  Macaulay, 
"  enjoyed  with  the  delight  of  a  true  Spaniard  two  delight- 
ful spectacles,  a  horse  with  its  bowels  gored  out,  and  a 
Jew  writhing  in  the  fire."  It  was  Madame  des  Ursins, 
who,   from  the   time   of   her  arrival   in   Spain,   openly 

*  Written  from  Barcelona  to  Madame  deNoailles  on  December  12th, 
1 70 1.  See  "  Lettres  In^dites  de  la  Princesse  des  Ursins  "  (Geoffrey, 
1859),  p.  144. 


236  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

condemned   these  hideous    scenes   and  prevailed   upon 
Philip  V.  to  discontinue  them. 

The  King's  confidence  the  Camerera  Major  won  rapidly 
and  completely,  but  with  the  Queen  it  was  different. 
And  Marie  Louise  was  long  in  forgetting  how  the  Princess 
had  parted  her  from  her  countrywomen  and  left  her  to 
strangers.  One  is  not  surprised,  therefore,  at  the  note 
of  sadness  in  the  letters  which  during  the  first  weeks  of 
her  married  life  the  little  Queen  wrote  to  her  grand- 
mother, the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Savoy.  Of  "  the 
lounging,  moping  boy  "  who  was  her  husband,  Marie 
Louise  writes, ''  I  wish  the  King  would  talk  more  "  ;  then 
in  another  letter,  "  Hunting  is  the  King's  favourite  amuse- 
ment ;  he  goes  out  every  day.  I  sometimes  visit  convents, 
which  are  ugly,  or  go  into  the  garden.  To-day,  because  it 
is  Sunday,  the  King  will  come  with  us." 

Madame  des  Ursins  had  to  exercise  all  her  tact  and 
charm  before  she  could  gain  the  affection  of  the  home- 
sick Queen.  ''  The  King  is  a  charming  Prince  whose 
confidence  I  hope  to  win.  Would  to  God  the  Queen 
resembled  him,"  she  wrote.  But  the  Queen's  affection 
was  all  the  more  durable  for  not  being  lightly  given. 
After  a  time  Marie  Louise  yielded  to  the  Princess's 
attractions,  and,  once  having  forgotten  her  grievance, 
became  her  devoted  and  lifelong  friend. 

Spain  under  Philip  V.  may  be  compared  to  the  house- 
hold of  Themistocles,  for  while  in  the  latter  it  was  the  wife 
who  ruled  Themistocles,  and  the  baby  who  ruled  the  wife, 
and  therefore  the  baby  who  ruled  the  house,  so  in  Spain  it 
was  the  Queen  who  ruled  Philip  V.,  Madame  des  Ursins 
who  ruled  the  Queen,  and  therefore  Madame  des  Ursins 
who  ruled  Spain.  According  to  Louville,  Philip  V.  was  a 
prince  "  who  does  not  reign,  and  who  never  will."   On  the 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  237 

whole,  the  influence  exerted  by  Madame  des  Ursins  was 
for  the  good  of  the  country.  The  Princess  was  resolved 
to  render  her  royal  pupil  not  only  happy,  but  useful. 
And  her  design  in  this  respect  was  soon  seconded  by 
fortune.  For,  but  a  few  months  after  his  marriage,  King 
Philip  left  Barcelona  to  conduct  the  war  in  Italy,  and  the 
Queen  was  appointed  regent  during  his  absence.  The 
Princess  contrived  that  the  Queen's  office  should  be  no 
sinecure.  Immediately  she  carried  her  off  to  Sarra- 
gossa.  There,  always  with  her  Camerera  Major  at  her 
elbow,  the  Queen  presided  over  the  meeting  of  the 
Estates  of  Castile,  much  to  the  chagrin  of  the  deputies, 
who  demurred  to  the  presidency  of  a  woman.  Then 
Marie  Louise  was  taken  to  Madrid,  where  her  indefatigable 
gouvernante  insisted  on  her  being  present  at  the  meetings 
of  the  Council  or  Junta,  always  well  chaperoned  by  the 
Princess,  who  had  no  right  whatever  to  be  there,  but  who 
eagerly  seized  on  this  opportunity  to  penetrate  into  the 
secret  mysteries  of  Spanish  government.  During  those 
interminable  discussions,  which  lasted  usually  for  six 
hours,  while  the  little  Queen  was  permitted  to  amuse 
herself  with  needlework,  her  lady-in-waiting  listened 
eagerly,  losing  not  a  word,  and  carefully  reproducing  these 
debates  in  her  letters  to  Louis  XIV. 

Those  were  troubled  times  for  Spain,  for  in  September, 
1702,  while  the  King  was  still  absent,  the  English  fleet 
under  the  Duke  of  Ormond  entered  the  harbour  of  Cadiz 
and  landed  an  army.  The  landing  of  English  soldiers, 
however,  was  not  altogether  a  misfortune  for  the  Spanish 
government.  The  barbarity  and  greed  of  the  invaders 
so  roused  the  Spanish  national  spirit  that  the  peasants  to 
a  man  volunteered  to  fight  in  defence  of  their  country, 
while  nobles  and  farmers,  and  even  poor  folk,  gave  all 


238  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

that  they  had  to  repulse  the  foreigner.  Madame  des 
Ursins  took  care  that  in  this  crisis  the  Queen  should 
appear  as  the  organiser  of  defence,  and  it  was  to  her  that 
the  parish  priests  brought  the  savings  of  their  parishioners. 
One  came  bearing  120  pistoles.  "  My  flock  are  ashamed 
to  send  you  so  little,"  he  said,  "  but  they  beg  you  to 
believe  that  in  this  purse  there  are  a  hundred  and  twenty 
hearts  faithful  even  to  the  death."  The  Queen  gave  her 
own  jewels  for  the  payment  of  soldiers.  She  herself 
offered  to  go  to  the  coast. 

By  this  time  all  misunderstanding  between  Madame 
and  her  royal  pupil  had  vanished,  and  when,  early  in 
1703,  King  Philip  returned  to  Spain  he  found  them  in 
perfect  accord.  He  himself,  during  his  absence,  had  so 
pined  for  his  wife  that  on  his  return  he  fell  more  passion- 
ately in  love  with  her  than  ever  and  more  completely 
under  her  influence. 

But  that  Spain  should  be  governed  by  two  women  was 
the  last  thing  desired  by  the  two  Cardinals,  the  Princess's 
two  old  friends,  Portocarrero  and  Estrees,  who  with  her 
help  had  been  chiefly  instrumental  in  bringing  the 
Bourbons  into  Spain.  It  was  not  in  order  to  make 
Madame  des  Ursins  the  arbiter  of  Spanish  destinies  that 
they  had  raised  Philip  V.  to  the  throne.  Cardinal 
d'Estrees  was  now  French  Ambassador  at  Madrid.  Porto- 
carrero was  the  president  of  the  Junta.  But  they  both 
speedily  became  such  formidable  rivals  that  Madame  des 
Ursins  began  to  scheme  against  them.  By  representa- 
tions to  Versailles  she  obtained  Estrees'  recall ;  Porto- 
carrero she  persuaded  to  accept  military  office,  and  thus, 
according  to  a  Spanish  law,  to  effect  his  own  exclusion 
from  the  Junta.  Even  then,  however,  the  Princess's 
triumph  was  by  no  means  secure ;    for  the  Cardinal 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  239 

d'Estrees  was  succeeded  by  his  nephew,  the  Abbe 
d'Estrees,  who,  although  he  was  apparently  content  to 
be  Madame's  subordinate,  was  all  the  while  working 
secretly  against  her  and  complaining  of  her  conduct  in 
the  despatches  he  sent  to  France. 

Beginning  to  suspect  this  treachery,  the  Princess 
intercepted  one  of  the  Abbe's  despatches,  wherein  she 
found  her  suspicions  fully  justified  ;  for  in  this  document 
the  Ambassador  descanted  at  length  on  the  scandalous 
relations  which  were  said  to  exist  between  Madame  and 
her  secretary  d'Aubigne,  whom  she  had  brought  from 
Italy.  How  much  truth  there  was  in  these  allegations  it 
is  impossible  to  tell,  neither  can  we  be  certain  as  to  what 
happened  to  this  despatch  after  the  Princess  had  read  it ; 
for  two  conflicting  stories  are  told  as  to  its  fate,  one  by 
the  Duke  of  Berwick,  who  was  at  that  time  commanding 
the  French  troops  in  Spain,  and  the  other  by  that  malicious 
raconteur  St.  Simon. 

St.  Simon's  story,  though  probably  false,  is  too 
amusing  not  to  be  repeated  here.  He  tells  how  Madame 
des  Ursins,  having  read  with  comparative  calm  a  long 
list  of  accusations  against  her  and  her  secretary,  came  to  a 
statement  that  they  were  married.  This  was  too  great  an 
insult  to  the  pride  of  a  high-born  dame ;  the  charge  that 
d'Aubigne  was  her  lover  she  might  endure,  but  that  she 
had  married  the  son  of  a  Paris  attorney  was  too  much. 
In  her  indignation  she  took  up  her  pen  and  wrote  in  the 
margin  :  ''  Married  !  certainly  not  !  "  ^  Then,  oblivious 
of  this  tell-tale  comment,  she  sealed  up  the  despatch  to 
look  as  if  it  had  never  been  opened  and  forwarded  it  to 
France.  Louis,  as  was  his  custom,  had  the  ambassador's 
letter  opened  and  read  before  his  Council,  and  great  was 
*  Pour  manes  non. 


240  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

the  merriment  at  the  reading  of  the  Princess's  impetuous 
marginal  denial  of  the  Abbe's  accusation.  Such  conduct, 
however,  was  beyond  a  joke,  and  anger  soon  succeeded 
mirth  in  the  breasts  of  the  King  and  his  counsellors. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  the  improbability  of 
St.  Simon's  story.  Madame  des  Ursins  was  no  fool  to 
commit  such  a  blunder,  neither  did  she  ever  allow  herself 
to  be  carried  away  by  indignation.  For  what  most  likely 
happened  we  must  turn  to  the  Duke  of  Berwick's  Memoirs, 
where  he  relates,  that,  having  taken  a  copy  of  the  letter, 
the  Princess  added  to  the  original  her  contravention  of  the 
Ambassador's  slander,  and  with  complaints  of  his  perfidy 
forwarded  the  packet  to  the  King. 

Whatever  the  details  may  have  been,  it  was  this  incident 
which  caused  Madame  des  Ursins'  fall,  and  closed  the  first 
period  of  her  rule  in  Spain.  For  some  time  there  had  been 
two  parties  at  the  court  of  France,  the  Princess's  friends, 
notably  La  Marechale  de  Noailles  and  the  former  Spanish 
Ambassador,  Comte  d'Harcourt,  who  through  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  besieged  the  Monarch's  ears  with  praises  of 
the  Princess  ;  and  her  enemies,  the  chief  of  whom  was 
Cardinal  d'Estrees,  who  were  equally  untiring  in  their 
complaints  against  her.  For  some  time  Louis  had  been 
inclined  to  agree  with  the  latter  ;  and  the  intercepted 
despatch  decided  him.  In  May,  1704,  Madame  des 
Ursins  was  recalled.  "  At  length,  Madame,"  she  wrote 
to  la  Marechale,  "  falsehood  has  conquered  truth,  and 
although  I  may  say  that  never  did  anyone  serve  the  King 
with  greater  zeal  and  with  greater  honesty,  yet  I  am 
treated  as  a  criminal  who  has  betrayed  the  state  while 
my  accusers  glory." 

The  Princess's  mission  in  Spain  now  appeared  an  utter 
failure.     Her    enemies    must    have    thought    that    the 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  241 

diplomatic  career  of  this  elderly  woman  of  over  sixty  was 
at  an  end  and  that  nothing  remained  for  her  but  to  with- 
draw quietly  to  Rome.  Madame  des  Ursins,  however, 
was  not  one  to  be  vanquished  by  adversity  :  it  was  in 
times  of  mischance  that  her  gifts  best  displayed  them- 
selves ;  and  she  never  appeared  more  brilliant  than  when 
in  a  few  months  she  converted  this  humiliating  defeat 
into  a  glorious  victory. 

Her  method  was  first  of  all  to  gain  time  :  she  was  in  no 
hurry  to  obey  Louis*  command  and  to  leave  the  Spanish 
capital.  When  at  length  she  did  comply  it  was  only  to 
withdraw  to  Alcala,  about  twenty  miles  from  Madrid,  and 
there  she  lingered  for  five  weeks  before  leisurely  pursuing 
her  journey  to  Bayonne.  Then,  instead  of  making  for 
Rome,  as  her  enemies  hoped  and  expected,  she  went  to 
Toulouse  and  waited. 

Meanwhile  in  Madrid,  since  her  departure,  things  had 
been  going  from  bad  to  worse  :  the  King  and  Queen  were 
disconsolate  at  the  Princess's  recall ;  the  Spaniards,  too, 
with  whom  she  was  very  popular,  mourned  her  absence, 
and  none  of  these  circumstances  escaped  the  knowledge 
of  Louis  XIV.,  who,  at  the  same  time,  was  constantly 
hearing  of  the  injustice  of  her  treatment  from  Madame  de 
Maintenon  and  Comte  d'Harcourt.  Finally,  in  December, 
1704,  the  Princess  obtained  just  what  she  wanted — a 
summons  to  appear  at  Versailles  ;  and  now  she  did  not 
delay,  but  straightway  obeyed  the  King's  command. 
Before  the  end  of  January,  despite  the  severity  of  the 
weather,  she  had  travelled  north  and  reached  Paris. 

At  the  French  court  she  carried  everything  before  her. 
During  her  previous  visits  she  can  have  known  little  of  the 
King.  During  her  three  years'  residence  in  Spain,  Louis 
had   shown    respect    for    her    judgment,    and    on    one 

C.R.  R 


242  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

occasion^  he  even  countermanded  an  order  at  her 
request. 

But  any  esteem  in  which  Louis  may  have  previously 
held  Madame  des  Ursins  was  far  beneath  that  he  now 
formed  of  her.  Now  she  captivated  him  by  her  grace  and 
her  ability.  For  hours  she  remained  closeted  with  the 
King  and  with  Madame  de  Maintenon  discussing  the 
affairs  of  Spain.  In  public  the  King  paid  her  almost  as 
much  deference  as  if  she  had  been  a  Queen.  At  one  of  the 
court  balls  she  was  seen  carrying  in  her  arms  a  little 
spaniel,  a  privilege  accorded  to  no  other  lady  at  court, 
and  the  King  actually  caressed  it  during  one  of  the  dances. 
Sainte-Beuve  paints  a  charming  picture  ^  of  the  delightful 
intercourse  enjoyed  by  these  three  eminent  personages, 
the  great  King,  Madame  de  Maintenon  and  Madame  des 
Ursins.  With  the  last  as  a  third  "  even  the  King's  inter- 
course with  Madame  de  Maintenon  assumed  a  new  fresh- 
ness. But  of  the  three,"  Sainte-Beuve  ventures  to  say, 
"  it  was  Madame  des  Ursins  who  most  powerfully 
dominated  the  situation,  who  was  the  most  detached 
from  her  part  and  yet  who  played  it  the  best." 

From  the  moment  of  the  Princess's  arrival  at  Versailles 
her  return  to  Spain  had  been  a  foregone  conclusion  ;  but 
her  cause  was  greatly  strengthened  by  the  communica- 
tions which  the  King  was  receiving  from  the  Due  de 
Gramont,  then  French  Ambassador  at  Madrid.  These 
despatches  convinced  Louis  of  Philip's  incapacity  to 
govern  on  his  own  account,  of  the  Queen's  devotion  to 
Madame  des  Ursins  and  of  her  indignation  at  the  disgrace 
of  her  Camerera  Major,  which  had  struck  a  serious  blow 

1  When  he  had  revoked  his  instructions  to  the  Spanish  Government 
to  confiscate  the  treasure  of  other  nations  brought  in  Spanish  galleons 
into  Vigo  Bay. 

"^  "  Causeries  du  Lundi,"  ed.  1852,  V.,  331 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  243 

at  French  influence  at  Madrid.  Thus  Louis  was  driven 
to  the  conclusion  that  Madame's  return  to  power  was  the 
only  possible  way  of  restoring  amicable  relations  between 
the  two  countries  ;  and  apparently  when  she  had  been 
but  a  few  weeks  at  Versailles  the  King  requested  her  to 
return  to  Spain.  But  now  she  was  on  her  dignity.  Now 
it  was  her  turn  to  hang  back.  Now  she  must  have  some- 
thing better  than  her  former  equivocal  position  at  Madrid  ; 
now  the  King  must  not  only  extend  her  powers,  he  must 
definitely  recognise  them.  And  so,  at  Marly,  in  an 
interview  between  that  imposing  trio,  the  Great  King, 
the  Great  Marchioness  and  the  Great  Princess,  a  document 
was  drawn  up  and  committed  to  the  care  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon.  In  this  document  Louis  undertook  to 
increase  the  Princess's  pension,  to  communicate  in  future 
with  her  direct  and  not  by  the  intermediary  of  any 
ambassador,  to  pay  no  heed  to  any  calumnies  against  her, 
to  relieve  her  of  the  duties  of  Camerera  Major,  which 
restricted  her  independence,  to  appoint  as  ambassador 
one  of  her  friends,  Amelot,  Marquis  de  Gournay,  and 
finally  to  contrive  that  she  should  be  consulted  as  to  the 
appointment  of  Spanish  ministers. 

Such  measures  practically  placed  the  government  of 
Spain  in  the  hands  of  the  Princesse  des  Ursins,  and 
constituted  her  the  acknowledged  agent  of  France  at 
Madrid.  Her  triumph  was  supreme,  she  had  now  surely 
attained  the  height  of  her  ambition.  And  yet,  if  we  may 
believe  St.  Simon — and  in  this  matter  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  him — this  ambitious  woman  was  not  satisfied,  she 
aspired  to  a  position  still  loftier.  From  January  till  June 
she  lingered  at  the  French  court.  Madame  de  Maintenon 
could  not  understand  why.  She  had  conquered,  she  had 
triumphed  brilliantly,  why  did  she  not  set  out  to  enjoy 

R  2 


244  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

the  fruits  of  her  victory  ?  "  There  is  something  I  cannot 
understand  about  Madame  des  Ursins/'  wrote  the 
Marchioness,  "  she  can't  be  induced  to  depart/'  St. 
Simon  suggests,  and  with  no  improbabiUty,  that  the 
feeble  health  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  and  the  impression 
which  the  Princess  had  obviously  made  upon  the  King  had 
so  inflated  her  ambition  that  she  hoped  in  the  event  of 
the  Marchioness's  demise  to  become  Queen  of  France,  for 
we  may  be  sure  that  she  would  never  have  consented  to 
a  morganatic  marriage  with  the  King.  But  Madame  de 
Maintenon  recovered,  the  Princess's  dream  vanished ; 
and,  on  June  29th,  1705,  we  find  her  at  Amboise,  en  route 
for  Spain. 

Her  journey  to  Madrid  was  a  triumphal  progress. 
''  Spain  receives  me,"  she  wrote,  "  with  every  conceivable 
honour  and  demonstration  of  joy."  Wherever  she 
passed,  dances,  games,  bull  fights,  fireworks  and  the 
discharge  of  cannon  greeted  her  return.  A  few  miles 
from  Madrid,  the  French  Ambassador  came  out  to  meet 
her.  After  he  had  entertained  her  at  a  superb  banquet, 
the  King  and  Queen  themselves  arrived  with  the  whole 
court.  Then  in  pomp  and  magnificence  they  escorted  her 
into  the  capital,  which,  amidst  the  applause  of  the  people, 
she  entered  on  August  3rd. 

It  is  during  the  time  of  her  second  rule  in  Spain,  between 
1705  and  1714,  that  Madame  des  Ursins  appears  to  the 
greatest  advantage.  She  returned  to  find  the  country  a 
prey  to  two  evils,  civil  war  and  foreign  invasion.  A  strong 
party  led  by  the  Admiral  of  Castile  had  gone  over  to  the 
Austrian  Archduke  Charles,  who  called  himself  King 
Charles  HI.,  and  who  was  then  commanding  the  army 
sent  by  the  allies  to  drive  the  Bourbons  from  the  Spanish 
throne.   Meanwhile  an  English  fleet  cruising  off  the  coast 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  245 

supported  the  land  forces  and  constantly  threatened  the 
harbours  of  Spain  with  pillage  and  desolation.  In  the  face 
of  these  disasters  nothing  but  the  fortitude,  the  hopeful- 
ness, the  resource  and  the  energy  of  Madame  des  Ursins 
could  have  preserved  the  throne  of  Spain  for  the  house  of 
Bourbon. 

Madame  de  Maintenon,  blissfully  ignorant  of  the 
Princess's  dream  of  succeeding  her,  was  now  her  intimate 
friend  and  her  most  regular  correspondent.  In  her  letters 
she  marvels  at  the  cheerfulness  with  which  the  Princess 
breasted  this  sea  of  troubles.  "  My  temperament  is  my 
best  friend,"^  Madame  des  Ursins  wrote.  "Among  the 
many  gifts  I  have  received  from  God  is  the  gift  of  cheer- 
fulness, which  enables  me  to  despair  of  nothing.  I  am 
firmly  persuaded  that  with  courage,  with  diligence  and 
with  firmness  one  may  overcome  the  greatest  difficulties, 
provided  always  that  those  who  act  desire  the  public 
good."  ^  And  throughout  those  dark  days  "  the  public 
good  "  that  Madame  des  Ursins  desired  seems  to  have 
been  that  of  Spain,  for  whose  sake  she  even  dared  to  differ 
from  "  the  Great  King." 

On  reaching  Madrid  in  the  summer  of  1705,  she  found 
that  the  allies  were  rapidly  conquering  Catalonia  and 
besieging  its  chief  city  Barcelona,  which  fell  into  their 
hands  on  October  9th.  The  Princess's  letters  at  this 
time  to  Chamillard,  Minister  of  War  and  Finance,  to 
Madame  de  Maintenon  and  to  La  Marechale  de  Noailles 
are  full  of  entreaties  for  help.  After  the  loss  of  Barcelona 
she  wrote  :  "If  only  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  France 
had  sent  us  two  or  three  thousand  men  through  Roussillon, 
we  should  now  be  as  well  as  we  are  badly  off.     That  the 

1  See  Geoff roy,  "  Lettres  In6dites  de  Madame  de  Maintenon  et  de 
Madame  des  Ursins,"  p.  259. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  256. 


246  FROM  THE   CRUSADES 

succour  did  not  come  was  not  my  fault,  for  I  wrote  to 
your  court  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary/'  ^ 

In  spite  of  the  Princess's  admirable  efforts  the  prospects 
of  the  Bourbons  in  Spain  grew  steadily  darker  until,  in 
1706,  the  approach  of  the  allies  drove  the  King  and  Queen 
from  the  capital.  "  We  departed  without  the  barest 
necessities,"  wrote  Madame  des  Ursins.^  "  At  first  the 
Queen  was  without  a  bed.  Fortunately  the  Chevalier  de 
Bragelonne,  who  commanded  our  French  escort,  had  a  new 
one,  which  came  in  very  useful.  But  other  things  were 
not  so  easily  supplied,  for  (on  the  first  day)  Her  Majesty 
had  only  two  eggs  for  supper,  and  much  the  same  fare  on 
the  morrow."  ^ 

While  the  King  joined  the  army,  the  Queen  with 
Madame  des  Ursins,  one  lady-in-waiting  and  a  maid  was 
left  at  Burgos  ;  and  thence  with  her  accustomed  gaiety 
the  Princess  sent  Madame  de  Maintenon  an  amusing 
description  of  their  quarters.  "  My  apartment,"  she  wrote, 
**  consists  of  only  one  room  some  twelve  or  thirteen  feet 
square.  A  large  window,  which  refuses  to  shut,  occupies 
nearly  the  whole  of  one  wall ;  a  low  door  leads  into  the 
Queen's  chamber,  and  a  smaller  one  into  a  winding  passage 
which  I  never  dare  enter,  although  there  are  two  or  three 
lamps  burning  in  it,  because  it  is  so  badly  paved  that  I 
should  break  my  neck.  I  can't  say  that  the  walls  are 
white,  because  they  are  very  dirty.  My  travelling  bed  is 
my  only  piece  of  furniture,  save  for  a  folding  chair  and  a 
deal  table  which  serves  for  my  toilet,  and  on  which  I  write 
and  eat  my  dessert  from  the  Queen's  table. 

"  At  all  this  Her  Majesty  does  nothing  but  laugh,  and  I 
join  her." 

^  Geoffrey,  op.  cit.,  p.  207. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  249. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  249. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  247 

One  is  glad  to  find  that  such  astounding  equanimity  in 
misfortune  did  not  remain  unrewarded ;  after  a  few 
weeks'  occupation  of  the  capital  the  allies  retreated,  and 
the  King  and  Queen  with  Madame  des  Ursins  returned 
to  Madrid. 

Some  months  earlier,  on  December  8th,  1705,  the 
Princess  had  written  at  great  length  ^  to  Chamillard  on 
the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  in  this  letter  she  had  entreated 
that  her  old  friend,  the  Duke  of  Berwick,  who  in  the 
previous  year  had  been  recalled  to  France,  should  be  sent 
back  to  Spain  to  command  the  King's  army.  Her  request 
had  been  granted,  **  This  great  devil  of  an  Englishman," 
as  Berwick  was  called  in  Spain,  realised  all  Madame  des 
Ursins'  hopes,  and  it  was  Berwick's  advance  which  had 
driven  the  allies  out  of  Madrid.  Now  the  Princess  made 
superb  efforts  to  efficiently  equip  his  army.  In  the 
province  of  Burgos  she  raised  8,000  pistoles,  in  another 
15,000,  and  in  wealthy  Andalusia  still  more.  Money, 
food  and  clothing  poured  into  Berwick's  camp  ;  and,  as 
King  Philip  admitted  in  a  graceful  letter  to  the  Princess, 
it  was  owing  to  her  energy  and  resource  that  he  was  now 
able  to  feed,  to  clothe  and  to  pay  his  soldiers. 

Madame  des  Ursins'  noble  exertions  received  their 
recompense  when,  at  Almanza,^  on  April  25th,  1707, 
Marshal  Berwick  inflicted  a  crushing  defeat  on  the  allies. 

This  victory  for  a  time  completely  restored  the  fortunes 
of  King  Philip  V.  ;  and  by  the  end  of  the  year  the  only 
part  of  Spain  held  by  the  allies  was  the  northern  province 
of  Catalonia.     The  news  of  the  battle  was  received  with 


*  The  letter  occupies  eight  pages  (213 — 221)  of  Geoffrey's  book. 

2  The  only  battle  recorded  in  which  an  English  general  at  the  head 
of  a  French  army  defeated  an  English  army  commanded  by  a  French- 
man. The  Englishman  was,  of  course,  Berwick,  the  Frenchman,  Henri 
de  Ruvigny,  Lord  Galway. 


248  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

great  rejoicing  both  in  France  and  at  Madrid.  Madame 
des  Ursins  herself  had  the  joy  of  announcing  it  to  the 
King  and  Queen.  Madame  de  Maintenon,  in  one  of  her 
liveHest  letters,  related  how  the  news  reached  the  French 
court.-^  "  You  know,  Marly,'*  she  writes,  "  and  my  apart- 
ments there  ;  the  King  was  alone  in  my  little  room  ;  and 
I  in  my  boudoir,  which  serves  as  a  passage,  was  sitting 
down  to  table,  when  an  officer  of  the  guards  announced  at 
the  King's  door,  M.  de  Chamillard.  The  King  replied, 
'  What,  is  it  he  ?  '  for  naturally  he  was  not  expected.  I, 
very  much  astonished,  threw  down  my  napkin,  as  M.  de 
Chamillard,  crying  '  It  is  good  news  !  '  went  straight  in  to 
the  King  .  .  .  and,  as  you  may  imagine,  Madame,  I  went 
in  also.  Then  I  heard  of  the  defeat  of  the  enemy's  army 
and  returned  to  my  supper  in  high  spirits." 

The  year  1707  was  one  of  rejoicing  at  the  court  of 
Spain,  for  on  August  25th  a  prince  was  born  to  the  King 
and  Queen.  We  are  amused  to  find  Madame  des  Ursins 
taking  credit  to  herself  for  this  auspicious  event.  The 
Spaniards,  she  writes,  would  have  blamed  her  had  their 
Queen  not  born  an  heir.  For  months  the  Princess  had 
been  on  the  tip-toe  of  eager  expectation.  Long  letters 
on  the  subject  had  passed  between  the  two  childless  old 
ladies  who  then  controlled  the  courts  of  Versailles  and 
Madrid,  Madame  des  Ursins  asking  for  advice  as  to  the 
selection  of  nurses  for  the  royal  infant,  Madame  de 
Maintenon  counselling  Madame  des  Ursins  to  study  a 
graceful  attitude  for  rocking  the  cradle. 

Meanwhile,  although  fortune  was  favouring  the 
Bourbons  in  Spain,  in  Italy  and  the  north  the  military 
gifts  of  Prince  Eugene  and  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  were 

1  "  Lettres  In6dites  de  Madame  de  Maintenon  et  de  la  Princesse 
des  Ursins,"  I.,  120. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  ^49 

driving  Louis  XIV.  to  despair.  He  was  beginning  to 
feel  the  task  of  maintaining  his  grandson  on  the  throne  of 
Spain  to  be  an  intolerable  burden.  The  terrible  disasters 
of  1709,  the  defeat  of  Malplaquet,  and  a  severe  winter 
followed  by  plague  and  famine,  confirmed  Louis  in  this 
idea,  in  which  he  was  supported  by  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
who  desired  peace  at  any  price.  On  this  point  she  had 
long  and  bitter  discussions  with  Madame  des  Ursins,  who 
would  never  for  a  moment  entertain  the  idea  of  abandon- 
ing Spain  to  the  Austrians,  not  even  when  in  September, 
1710,  the  court  was  again  driven  from  Madrid.  In  that 
year,  as  in  1707,  the  allies  were  unable  to  hold  the  capital 
for  long,  and  by  December  the  King  and  Queen  were  back 
again  in  their  capital.  Meanwhile  the  skilful  operations  of 
Venddme  caused  the  enemy  to  retreat  northwards,  until 
once  again  they  were  confined  within  the  mountainous 
strongholds  of  Catalonia. 

This  advantage  gained  by  the  French  in  Spain  doubtless 
influenced  those  negotiations  for  peace  which  were  now 
being  carried  on  by  the  warring  Powers.  Events  in  the 
Peninsula,  added  to  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Joseph, 
which,  leaving  the  Archduke  Charles  the  most  likely 
successor  to  the  Imperial  throne,  rendered  his  rule  in 
Spain  an  even  greater  threat  than  that  of  Philip  V. 
to  the  balance  of  power  in  Europe,  completely  altered 
Louis  XIV. 's  position.  The  King  now  looked  for  con- 
cessions in  return  for  any  sacrifices  he  might  make. 
From  this  time  the  abandonment  of  Spain  to  the  Austrian 
house  became  out  of  the  question,  and  Madame  des 
Ursins'  mind  was  set  at  rest. 

But  no  sooner  was  she  relieved  from  anxiety  on  behalf 
of  her  adopted  land  and  her  beloved  sovereign  than  her 
inveterate  ambition  returned,  and  she  began  to  scheme 


250  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

on  her  own  account.  As  a  part  of  the  settlement  which 
the  European  Powers  were  then  negotiating,  King  PhiHp 
proposed  that  on  Madame  des  Ursins  and  her  heirs  in  full 
sovereignty  should  be  settled  the  Duchy  of  Limburg  in 
the  Low  Countries.  That  the  King  of  Spain  should  wish 
to  bestow  on  his  faithful  friend  and  wise  counsellor  some 
acknowledgment  of  the  valuable  services  she  had  rendered 
to  him  and  to  his  kingdom  was  only  just ;  but  that  when 
this  proposal  met  with  opposition  Madame  des  Ursins 
should  have  so  far  insisted  on  her  claims  as  to  drag  out 
the  negotiations  and  to  postpone  the  peace,  of  which 
Europe,  and  Spain  specially,  stood  so  greatly  in  need, 
seems  strangely  discordant  with  the  patriotism  she  had 
shown  earlier  in  the  war  ;  and  her  old  friend  the  minister, 
Torcy,  did  not  hesitate  to  denounce  her  for  this  action. 
While  England  and  Holland  were  not  indisposed  to  accede 
to  the  Princess's  demand  and  to  insert  the  grant  of 
sovereignty  in  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  the  Emperor  would 
not  hear  of  the  dismemberment  of  the  Netherlands.  And 
finally,  Louis  XIV.  had  to  intervene,  and  to  insist  on  his 
grandson's  commuting  the  sovereignty  of  Limburg  into 
a  money  pa^^ment  in  order  that  a  European  settlement 
might  be  arrived  at. 

Even  then,  after  she  had  been  omitted  from  the  Treaty, 
Madame  des  Ursins,  with  her  invincible  hopefulness, 
refused  to  abandon  the  idea  of  one  day  ruling  in  her  own 
right.  Before  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  she  had  persuaded 
King  Philip  to  issue  a  decree  calling  upon  the  grandees 
to  address  her  as  **  your  highness."  Her  overweening 
ambition  at  this  time  made  her  the  laughing-stock  of 
Europe  and  appealed  to  the  humour  of  Lord  Bolingbroke, 
who,  during  the  negotiations,  wrote  her  a  letter/  in  which 

1  See  his  "  Letters  and  Correspondence  "  ed.  Parke,  1798.  III.,  345- 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  251 

he  "  your  highnessed  "  her  at  every  line,  thinking,  as  he 
explained  to  a  friend,  that  in  the  absence  of  means  for  the 
gratification  of  her  avarice  it  might  be  prudent  for  England 
to  flatter  her  vanity. 

Meanwhile  the  Princess  insisted  on  assuming  sovereign 
state  ;  on  her  journeys  she  was  escorted  by  a  detachment 
of  the  King's  guard.  She  believed  that  one  day  Limburg 
would  be  hers,  and  when  that  day  should  come,  she  had 
resolved  to  exchange  it  for  a  part  of  Touraine.  So 
absurdly  sanguine  had  she  become  in  her  old  age  that  she 
secretly  despatched  her  secretary  d'Aubigne  to  purchase 
property  near  Amboise,  and  there  to  construct  a  vast 
edifice  which  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  royal 
palace.-^ 

But  while  she  was  building  these  airy  castles  in  Spain, 
and  a  more  substantial  one  on  the  Loire,  a  turn  in  the 
wheel  of  fortune  caused  the  former  to  vanish  like  a 
morning  mist,  while  the  latter  remained  only  to  be  known 
as  the  Princess's  folly.  For  on  February  14th,  1714,  the 
thread,  from  which  the  Princess's  vast  influence  depended, 
snapped,  and  Marie  Louise,  Queen  of  Spain,  died. 

For  a  time  this  reverse  seems  only  to  have  inflated  the 
Princess's  already  overweening  ambition,  and  at  first  she, 
an  old  lady  of  over  seventy,  seems  to  have  conceived  the 
extraordinary  design  of  marrying  the  King  of  Spain,  who 
was  forty  years  her  junior.  Louis  XIV.  and  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  knowing  her  strength  of  will  and  the  King's 
weakness,  greatly  feared  that  she  would  achieve  her 
object.  And  it  appears  to  have  been  their  opposition 
which  brought  the  Princess  to  her  senses.  Then,  as  if  in 
order  to  prove  to  them  that  she  had  never  intended  to  do 
anything  so  absurd,  she  hurriedly  and  without  waiting  to 
1  The  chateau  of  Chanteloup. 


252  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

hear  from  Versailles,  arranged  to  marry  Philip  to  a 
Princess  of  Parma,  Elizabeth  Farnese.  As  far  as  she 
herself  was  concerned,  Madame  des  Ursins  could  not 
possibly  have  made  a  more  unfortunate  choice.  In 
Elizabeth  she  met  her  match.  This  princess  was  born 
for  sovereignty.  Frederick  the  Great  said  of  her,  that  she 
possessed  all  the  pride  of  a  Spartan,  the  obstinacy  of  an 
Englishwoman,  the  vivacity  of  a  Frenchwoman,  and  the 
craft  of  an  Italian.  When  she  came  into  Spain,  one  thing 
she  had  determined — that  she  would  not  be  ruled  by  the 
old  lady  who  had  so  long  dominated  her  predecessor. 

The  marriage  was  to  take  place  in  December  at  Guada- 
laxara,  w^here  on  the  22nd  King  Philip  arrived,  accompanied 
by  Madame  des  Ursins.  There  the  Princess  left  the  King 
to  await  his  bride,  while  she  pushed  on  to  meet  Elizabeth 
at  a  neighbouring  village  where  she  was  to  spend  the 
night.  In  elaborate  court  dress,  Madame  des  Ursins  was 
ushered  into  the  Queen's  presence,  but  only  to  receive  an 
icy  reception.  In  the  course  of  conversation  the  royal 
bride  took  exception  to  her  visitor's  dress  and  to  her 
manners.  The  Princess,  who  considered  that  both  were 
perfectly  correct,  attempted  to  justify  herself.  Where- 
upon the  Queen  flew  into  a  temper  and  commanded  "  this 
mad  woman,"  as  she  called  her,  to  leave  her  presence. 
When  Madame  des  Ursins  hesitated,  Elizabeth,  seizing 
her  by  the  shoulders,  pushed  her  out  of  the  room,  at  the 
same  time  calling  for  the  lieutenant  of  the  guards  and  the 
equerry.  The  first  she  commanded  to  arrest  Madame  des 
Ursins,  the  second  to  prepare  a  six-horsed  carriage,  and 
in  it  to  drive  the  Princess  post  haste  to  the  frontier. 
When  the  lieutenant  represented  that  the  power  of 
arresting  a  personage  of  such  high  rank  as  the  Princess 
belonged  to  the  King  alone,  the  Queen  retorted,  what  was 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  253 

perfectly  true,  that  she  had  in  her  possession  a  royal  order 
commanding  the  lieutenant  to  obey  her  in  everything. 

Madame  des  Ursins,  therefore,  was  helpless.  Without 
allowing  her  time  to  pack  up  anything  or  to  take  any  food 
with  her,  or  even  to  change  her  court  dress,  the  Queen  had 
her  and  her  maid  unceremoniously  bundled  into  a  coach 
and  driven  out  of  Spain.  It  was  seven  o'clock  on 
Christmas  eve  when  she  started.  The  night  was  so 
bitterly  cold  that  before  morning  the  coachman's  hand 
was  frozen  off.  It  is  astonishing  that  at  her  age  the 
Princess  should  have  been  able  to  survive  such  a  terrible 
ordeal.  At  Bayonne  she  halted  in  her  enforced  flight,  and 
wrote  to  Louis  XIV.  of  the  gross  indignity  to  which  she 
had  been  subjected.  To  Philip  V.  she  knew  but  too  weU 
it  would  be  useless  to  appeal,  for  she  realised  that  as  he 
had  been  completely  dominated  by  his  first  wife,  so  he 
would  be  by  the  second.  To  her  great  consolation  the 
Princess  received  a  letter  written  with  the  Great  King's 
own  hand,  condoling  with  her  in  her  misfortune,  and 
inviting  her  to  come  to  Paris.  That  long  journey  from 
Bayonne  to  Paris,  which  once  before  she  had  taken  in 
mid-winter,  she  now  made  for  the  second  and  last 
time.  Arriving  in  Paris  in  the  middle  of  February,  1715, 
she  took  up  her  abode  with  her  brother,  the  Duke  of  Noir- 
moustiers,  and  waited  for  a  summons  to  the  royal  presence. 

But  that  summons  was  long  delayed.  At  the  French 
court  powerful  influences  were  working  against  her. 
Louis  XIV.  and  Madame  de  Maintenon,  since  the  rumour 
of  her  design  to  marry  Philip  V.,  were  somewhat  afraid 
of  her  ambition.  Moreover,  even  Louis'  influence  was 
waning  ;  the  Great  King  was  ill,  his  long  reign  was  draw- 
ing to  a  close,  the  star  of  the  future  Regent,  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  was  in  the  ascendant,  and  the  Duke  and  his 


254  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

mother,  the  erratic  Princess  Palatine,  were  Madame  des 
Ursins'  bitter  enemies.  So  the  Princess  waited  and 
waited.  When  at  length  the  summons  to  Versailles 
reached  her  and  she  went  to  lay  her  grievances  before  the 
King,  her  audience  was  a  terrible  disappointment.  It 
lasted  but  half  an  hour,  followed  by  an  hour  with  Madame 
de  Maintenon  and  a  dinner  with  Torcy,  the  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs.  Not  even  invited  to  stay  the  night,  the 
Princess  returned  to  Paris  the  same  day,  depressed  to 
think  how  different  was  this  cold  reception  from  that 
brilliant  triumph  which  had  greeted  her  at  Versailles  at 
the  time  of  her  first  fall  from  power. 

The  Princess  was  advised  to  retire  to  Italy.  But  before 
leaving  Paris,  she  requested  and  obtained  one  parting  inter- 
view with  the  King.  Then  Louis  and  Madame  de  Maintenon 
received  her  at  Marly  as  coldly  and  as  briefly  as  before  ; 
and  there  she  took  her  last  leave  of  the  King  and  of  his  wife. 

By  slow  stages,  hoping  still  for  some  turn  of  fortune 
in  her  favour,  and  still  uncertain  as  to  the  place  of  her 
retirement,  Madame  des  Ursins  made  her  way  south.  At 
Lyons  the  news  of  the  King's  death  and  of  the  Regency  of 
the  Duke  of  Orleans  reached  her.  From  that  moment 
any  desire  she  might  have  had  to  remain  in  France  was 
extinguished.  To  Madame  de  Maintenon  she  wrote  con- 
gratulating her  on  finding  a  retreat  at  St.  Cyr ;  "as  for 
me,*'  she  added,  "  I  know  not  where  to  go  and  die." 
Rome  of  all  places  would  most  naturally  attract  her  ;  but 
she  feared  the  reception  she  might  meet  with  from  the 
Pope,  and  perhaps  she  hesitated  to  return  in  disgrace  to  a 
city  where  she  had  once  been  so  powerful  and  so  popular. 
So,  for  a  while,  she  resided  at  Genoa,  until,  through  his 
ambassador,  Philip  V.,  who,  despite  his  second  wife's 
domination,  still  nourished  a  certain  kindness  for  his  old 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  255 

friend,  informed  her  that  the  Pope  would  receive  her 
kindly.  In  1718,  therefore,  after  seventeen  years'  absence, 
Madame  des  Ursins  returned  to  Rome.  It  was  as  King 
Philip  had  promised,  the  Pope,  and  not  only  the  Pope, 
but  his  court  and  his  cardinals  received  her  with  all 
possible  respect  and  honour.  One  of  those  cardinals  was 
her  own  brother,  raised  some  years  earlier  to  that  dignity 
by  his  sister's  influence,  and  now,  by  the  same  means, 
Ambassador  of  France  at  the  papal  court. 

The  Palazzo  Pasquino  had  some  time  before  passed  out 
of  Madame  des  Ursins'  possession.  But  the  house  she  now 
occupied,  although  probably  less  pretentious,  was  comfort- 
able and  commodious  enough  for  the  French  Ambassador, 
the  Abbe  de  Tencin,  to  wish  to  live  in  it  after  her  death. ^ 

At  Rome  the  Princess  met  another  exile,  James, 
Chevalier  de  St.  Georges,  the  Old  Pretender,  whom  a 
clause  in  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  had  banished  from  French 
dominions.  She  had  known  the  Prince  as  a  boy,  and,  as 
we  have  seen,  been  an  intimate  friend  of  his  mother. 
The  year  after  Madame  des  Ursins'  arrival  James  married 
Clementine,  daughter  of  the  famous  Jean  Sobieski. 
With  the  Stuart  bride  the  Princess  became  intimately 
associated,  and  ^in  ^the  court  of  the  exiled  Stuarts  she 
played  in  miniature  the  same  part  which  in  earlier  years 
she  had  acted  on  a  grander  and  a  more  extensive  stage. 

Retaining  almost  to  the  end  her  powers  of  body  and  of 
mind,  she  died  in  September,  1722,  after  three  days' 
illness,  during  which  she  was  visited  by  the  Princess 
Sobieski.  While  leaving  all  her  possessions  outside  Italy 
to  her  brother,  the  Duke  of  Noirmoustiers,  and  her  Orsini 
property  to  her  nephew,  the  Duke  of  Lanti,  she  bequeathed 
a  gold  snuff-box  set  with  diamonds  to  the  Pretender,  and 
1  "  Madame  des  Ursins  et  la  Succession  d'Espagne,"  VI.,  351. 


256  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

a  gilded  toilet-set  that  had  once  belonged  to  the  Queen  of 
Spain  to  the  Princess  Sobieski. 

Sainte-Beuve  at  the  end  of  his  second  causerie  on  the 
Princess  admits  that  he  had  intended  to  represent  Madame 
des  Ursins  as  an  example  of  the  undesirable  female 
politician.  But  Sainte-Beuve,  like  Balaam,  having  gone 
forth  to  curse,  remained  to  bless.  Captivated  by  her 
charms,  even  through  the  pallid  medium  of  books,  he  was 
compelled  to  recognise  her  usefulness.  And  indeed  with 
that  charm  which  captivated  Sainte-Beuve,  and  without 
which  no  woman  politician  can  achieve  success,  Madame 
des  Ursins  was  bountifully  endowed.  It  was  a  charm  of 
manner  and  also  of  appearance  as  the  portrait  illustrating 
this  chapter  must  testify. 

The  Princess's  brother,  the  Cardinal  de  La  Tremoille, 
had  two  years  earlier  preceded  her  to  the  grave.  No  one 
could  have  been  less  ecclesiastically  minded  than  this 
little  hunchback  Cardinal,  who  as  a  wit  and  a  libertine 
was  the  complete  type  of  an  eighteenth  century  abbe. 
As  we  have  seen,  he  owed  much  to  his  sister,  with  whom 
nevertheless  he  was  constantly  quarrelling.  His  house- 
hold was  the  most  disorderly  in  Rome,  and  although  the 
beneficiary  of  many  high  ecclesiastical  offices  and  vast 
church  lands,  he  died  a  bankrupt. 

A  very  different  person  was  Madame  des  Ursins*  elder 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Noirmoustiers.  Notwithstanding 
his  blindness,  he  was  a  man  of  wide  interests  and  high 
culture,  esteemed  by  a  large  circle  of  friends,  who  on 
matters  of  art  or  of  affairs  bowed  to  his  opinion  as  to  that 
of  an  oracle.  The  Duke  died  some  years  after  his  famous 
sister,  at  the  age  of  eighty.  His  second  wife  lived  on 
until  1733.  And  with  her  death  this  branch  of  the  La 
Tremoille  family  became  extinct. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION    257 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PRINCESSE  DE  TALMOND,  PRINCE  CHARLIE'S  EGERIA, 
AND  OTHER  LA  TRl^MOILLES  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

We  have  now  reached  the  period  of  La  Tremoille 
decHne.  While  with  Duke  Henry  and  Duchess  Marie  the 
house  attained  the  apogee  of  its  grandeur,  with  the  Fronde 
and  the  dissipation  of  the  family  fortune  by  the  Prince 
de  Tarente  there  set  in  a  steady  diminution  of  wealth  and 
of  authority,  which  ended  in  the  debacle  of  the  Revolution. 
Throughout  the  eighteenth  century,  as  we  have  seen,^  the 
Dukes,  unable  to  keep  up  the  double  state  of  an  establish- 
ment in  the  west  and  a  hotel  at  Paris,  were  content  to 
abandon  their  country  seats  for  the  capital.  The  Prince 
de  Tarente's  son,  Duke  Charles  Belgique,  lived  almost 
entirely  at  Paris,  in  a  house  on  the  Quai  Malaquais,  where 
he  died  in  1709. 

Nothwithstanding  a  goodlier  array  of  titles  than  had 
been  borne  by  any  of  his  ancestors,^  Duke  Charles,  at  once 
duke,  prince,  count,  baron,  viscount,  marquis,  peer  of 
France  and  first  gentleman  of  the  bedchamber,  was  much 
less  powerful  than  the  mere  Seigneurs  of  La  Tremoille  in 
the  twelfth  century.  For  we  find  him  compelled  through 
poverty  to  relinquish  the  grand  state  of  a  great  feudal 

1  Preface,  p.  VII. 

2  Due  de  La  Tremoille,  de  Thouars  and  de  Loudun,  Prince  de  Tarente 
and  de  Talmond,  Comte  de  Laval,  de  Montfort,  de  Guines,  de  Jonvelle 
and  de  Taillebourg,  Baron  de  Vitr6,  de  Mauleon,  de  Burie  and  de  Didonne, 
Vicomte  de  Rennes,  de  Bais  and  de  Marsille,  Marquis  d'Espinay. 

C.R.  S 


258  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

suzerain,  living  in  the  midst  of  numerous  vassals,  who 
would  expect  to  be  entertained  in  princely  fashion  after 
the  manner  of  the  La  Tremoilles  of  yore. 

For  this  woeful  deplenishment  of  the  family  exchequer, 
the  Prince  de  Tarente  must  not  be  held  solely  responsible. 
It  had  been  largely  drawn  upon  by  the  Prince's  parents 
for  the  erection  on  the  bank  of  the  Thouet  of  their  mag- 
nificent chateau,  which,  converted  into  a  state  prison, 
stands  to-day  as  the  expression  of  that  pride  which  pro- 
verbially heralds  a  fall.     But  there  was  yet  another  event 
which  helped  to  empty  the  La  Tremoille  purse,  and  with 
that  neither  the  Duke,  the  Duchess  nor  the  Prince  had 
anything  to  do.     Louis  XVL's  Revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes,  by  driving  from  France  the  Protestant  tanners 
of  Thouars,  the  most  industrious  and  the  most  prosperous 
of  its  inhabitants,  while  inflicting  an  irretrievable  disaster 
on  the  town   and  the  province,  considerably  curtailed 
the  La  Tremoille  income. 

Of  the  four  Dukes  of  Thouars  and  La  Tremoille  from 
the  Prince  de  Tarente  down  to  the  Revolution  there  is 
little  to  tell.  Neither  of  them  possessed  any  very  striking 
personality.  Three,  Charles  Belgique  (1655 — ^7^9)' 
Charles  Louis  Bretagne^  (1685 — 1719),  and  Jean  Bretagne 
(1737 — 1792),  were  soldiers.  But  Charles  Belgique  was 
compelled  by  ill-health  to  retire  early  from  the  army. 
Charles  Louis  Bretagne  and  Jean  Bretagne  were  field 
marshals,  in  which  capacity  the  former  commanded  at 
Oudenarde  and  Malplaquet.  Both  Charles  Belgique  and 
Charles  Louis  were  first  Gentlemen  of  the  Bedchamber  to 
Louis  XIV.,  an  office  which  the  latter  continued  to  hold 
under  Louis  XIV. 's  successor.     Charles  Armand  Rene 

*  The  name  of  Bretagne  was  given  to  him  because  the  Breton  Estates, 
of  which  his  father  was  President,  stood  as  his  godfather. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  259 

(1708 — 1741)  made  a  new  departure  in  the  history  of  his 
line.  Hitherto  the  La  Tremoilles,  had  distinguished  them- 
selves rather  in  the  sphere  of  action  than  in  that  of 
thought.  But  Armand  Rene  must  have  added  to  the 
ability  of  a  man  of  action — he  was  a  brilliant  soldier — 
some  intellectual  qualifications,  for  we  find  that  on  March 
6th,  1738,  he  was  received  as  a  member  of  the  French 
Academy,  a  new  honour  for  a  La  Tremoille,  but  one  which 
was  to  be  renewed  in  the  following  century ;  then  the 
late  Duke,  by  his  careful  arrangement  and  publication 
of  the  family  records,  won  a  seat  among  the  Immortals. 

Throughout  the  century,  despite  their  diminished 
wealth,  the  La  Tremoilles  pursued  their  ancient  policy  of 
mating  only  in  the  noblest  houses  of  the  da}^  Charles 
Belgique  married  Madeleine  de  Crequy,^  daughter  of 
Charles  de  Crequy,  Prince  de  Poix  ;  Charles  Louis  took 
to  wife  Marie  Madeleine,  only  daughter  of  Rene  Armand 
Motier  de  La  Fayette ;  Charles  Armand  Rene  followed 
the  example  of  his  ancestor  Duke  Henry  and  married 
into  the  house  of  Bouillon,  his  wife  Marie  Hortense 
was  the  daughter  of  the  Duke  Emmanuel  Theodore  de 
La  Tour  d'Auvergne.  Jean  Bretagne  was  twice  married : 
first  in  175 1  to  Marie  Genevieve  de  Durfort,  who  died 
without  children  in  1762 ;  and  afterwards  to  Marie 
Maximilienne  de  Salm-Kerbourg,  daughter  of  a  German 
Prince  and  Princess,  who  died  in  1790,  two  years  before 
her  husband,  leaving  four  sons. 

Considering  the  noble  zeal  shown  by  these  sons,  during 
the  Revolution  period,  in  risking  and  forfeiting  their  lives 
in  defence  of  the  French  monarchy,  had  not  the  Princess 
de  Salm  proved  more  prolific  than  the  wives  of  earlier 
eighteenth  century  La  Tremoilles,  the  line  would  have 

*  She  died  two  years  before  her  husband,  1717. 

S  2 


26o  FROM  THE   CRUSADES 

become  extinct,  for  both  Charles  Louis  Bretagne  and  his 
successor  Charles  Armand  Rene  had  only  one  son. 

It  is,  however,  to  the  younger  La  Tremoille  branch,  to 
the  wife  of  a  Prince  de  Talmond,  that  in  this  century  we 
must  look  for  that  vein  of  romantic  adventure  which 
never  fails  to  enliven  the  history  of  this  house. 

The  Prince  de  Tarente's  second  son,-^  Frederic  Guillaume, 
bore  the  title  of  Prince  de  Talmond  and  bequeathed  it  to 
his  son,  Anne  Charles  Frederic.  It  is  the  story  of  this 
Prince's  consort  that  is  the  subject  of  this  chapter. 

Now,  but  not  for  the  first  time,  we  shall  find  the 
destinies  of  La  Tremoilles  touching  those  of  the  house 
of  Stuart.  We  have  already  seen  Charlotte  de  La 
Tremoille  entertaining  her  cousin,  Prince  Rupert,  at 
Lathom  House,  the  Prince  de  Tarente  receiving  the 
Garter  from  the  exiled  Charles  II.,  the  Princesse  des  Ursins 
staying  with  Mary  of  Modena  at  St.  Germain,  and  later, 
in  the  days  of  her  adversity,  dominating  the  court  of  the 
elder  Pretender  at  Rome.  Now  La  Tremoilles  and  Stuarts 
were  to  be  associated  in  a  romantic  connection  which  to 
neither  house  was  to  bring  honour  or  prosperity. 

*  Henry  Charles,  Prince  de  Tarente. 


Charles  Belgique  Hollande,         Frederic  Guillaume,  Prince  de  Talmond, 
Due  de  La  Tremoille.  1668 — 1739, 

took  orders  and  became  Abb6  of 
Charroux  and  Canon  of  Strasbourg, 
1689 ;  left  Church  for  array  and  became 
Lieutenant-Gen eral  in  1710  ;  married 
Antoinette  de  Bouillon  in  1 707,  by  whom 

»  he  had  several  children.     The  eldest  = 

Anne  Charles  Fr^d^ric,  Prince  de 
Talmond,  Brigadier  of  Cavalry,  1743  ; 
created  Duke  of  Chatellerault,  1749  ; 
died  1759.  Married,  1730,  Marie  Louise 
Jablonowski,  first  cousin  of  King 
Stanislas  of  Poland. 

Louis  Stanislas,  Duke  of  Chatellerault. 


MADELINE  DE  LA  FAYETTE,  DUCHESE  DE  LA  TREMOILLE  AND 

HER  SON,  ARMAND  RENE,  DUC  DE  LA  TREMOILLE 

From  a  picture,  attributed  to  Jervas,  belonging  to  Mr.  Aldenburg  Bentinck, 
photographed  by  Mrs.  Aubrey  Le  Blond 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  261 

The  Prince  de  Tarente's  grandson,  besides  being  a 
brilliant  general,  was  a  gallant  courtier,  in  high  favour 
with  King  Louis  XV.  And  it  was  at  Louis'  court  at 
Chambord,  in  1730,  that  for  his  sins  the  Prince  de  Talmond 
met  and  married  one  of  the  most  attractive  and  capricious 
women  of  her  time,  a  Polish  Princess,  Marie  Jablonowski, 
first  cousin  to  Stanislas,  the  exiled  King  of  Poland,  with 
whose  daughter,  Queen  Marie  Leczsinki,  she  had  come 
to  France.  But  more  important  than  either  of  those 
relationships  and  fraught  with  more  serious  consequences 
was  Princess  Marie's  cousinship  to  Prince  Charles 
Edward  Stuart,  through  his  mother.  Princess  Sobieski. 

Some  years  after  her  marriage  we  find  the  Princesse  de 
Talmond  in  Paris,  in  the  fashionable  philosophical  circles 
of  that  day,  the  friend  of  Montesquieu,  of  Voltaire  and  of 
that  most  brilliant  of  eighteenth  century,  Salonnieres 
Madame  du  Deffand. 

In  this  same  circle,  possibly  introduced  into  it  by  his 
beautiful  cousin,  moved  Prince  Charles  Edward  during 
the  years  of  defeat  and  despair  which  followed  Culloden. 
Of  the  Princess,  Voltaire  wrote  that  she  was  endowed  with 

"  Le  gout  qu'on  ne  trouve  qu'en  France 
Et  Tesprit  de  tons  les  pays."  ^ 

Madame  du  Deffand,  who  never  indulged  in  undiluted 
praise,  draws  a  less  flattering  portrait  of  her. 

"  Madame  de  Talmond,"  she  writes,  "  has  beauty  and 
wit  and  vivacity  ;  that  turn  for  pleasantry  which  is  our 
national  inheritance  seems  natural  to  her.  .  .  .  But  her 
wit  deals  only  with  pleasant  frivolities  ;  her  ideas  are  the 
children  of  her  memory  rather  than  of  her  imagination. 
French  in  everything  else,  she  is  original  in  her  vanity. 

1  Quoted  by  Andrew  Lang,  "  Life  of  Prince  Chajrles  Edward  Stuart," 
(1903),  p.  343. 


262  FROM  THE   CRUSADES 

Ours  is  more  sociable,  inspires  the  desire  to  please,  and 
suggests  the  means.  Hers  is  truly  Sarmatian,  artless  and 
indolent ;  she  cannot  bring  herself  to  flatter  those  whose 
admiration  she  covets.  .  .  .  She  thinks  herself  perfect,  says 
so,  and  expects  to  be  believed.  At  this  price  alone  does 
she  yield  a  semblance  of  friendship  ;  semblance,  I  say, 
for  her  affections  are  concentrated  on  herself.  She  is  as 
jealous  as  she  is  vain,  and  so  capricious  as  to  make  her  at 
once  the  most  unhappy  and  the  most  absurd  of  women. 
She  never  knows  what  she  wants,  what  she  fears,  whom  she 
loves,  or  whom  she  hates.  There  is  nothing  natural  in  her 
expression  ;  with  her  chin  in  the  air  she  poses  eternally 
as  tender  or  disdainful,  absent  or  haughty  ;  all  is  affecta- 
tion. .  .  .  She  is  feared  and  hated  by  all  who  live  in  her 
society.  Yet  she  has  truth,  courage  and  honesty,  and  is 
such  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil  that  no  steadfast  opinion 
about  her  can  be  entertained.  She  pleases,  she  provokes  ; 
we  love,  hate,  seek,  and  avoid  her.  It  is  as  if  she  com- 
municated to  others  the  eccentricity  of  her  own  caprice.'* 

This  description,  while  obviously  not  charitable,  is 
stamped  with  that  keen  discernment  of  character  for 
which  the  wiitex'  was  famous  ;  indeed,  it  is  in  perfect 
accord  with  what  we  know  of  Madame  de  Talmond's 
behaviour  tow^ards  Prince  Charles.  To  the  story  of  their 
relations  as  told  by  Argenson  in  his  "  Memoirs,'*  the  late 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  in  his  two  volumes  entitled  "  Pickle 
the  Spy  "  and  the  life  of  ''  Prince  Charles  Edward,*'  has 
added  details  derived  chiefly  from  the  Stuart  papers  at 
Windsor  and  from  some  Additional  MSS.  in  the  British 
Museum.  In  the  course  of  unravelling  the  mysterious 
skein  of  the  Prince's  career  during  the  years  which 
followed  Culloden,  Mr.  Lang  has  revealed  the  important 
part  played  by  Madame  de  Talmond  in  this  chapter  of  her 
royal  cousin's  life. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  263 

As  the  defeated  hero  of  the  great  '45,  the  bonnie  Prince 
naturally  appealed  to  feminine  imagination.     "  In  Paris, 
the  year  after  CuUoden/*  writes  Argenson,  "  women  were 
literally  pulling  caps  for  Charles/*     In  a  manuscript  play 
by  the  minister  ^  he  represents  **  Madame  de  Talmond  and 
another  noble  lady  fighting  like  fish-fags  over  the  object 
of  their  admiration."     But  it  was  Madame  de  Talmond 
who,   despite  some  ten   years'   seniority  to  the  Prince, 
conquered  in  the  end,  and  ruled  her  victim  with  fire  and 
fury.      "  vShe    was    certainly   his    Egeria,    probably   his 
mistress,"  writes  Mr.  Lang.     She,  with  other  distinguished 
friends,  was  invited  by  Charles  to  a  gorgeous  supper  at 
Paris  in  1748,  for  which  the  Prince  ordered  a  new  service 
of  plate  worth  100,000  francs,  and  insisted  on  the  gold- 
smith's preferring  his  order  to  the  King's.     In  the  opinion 
of  the  Old  Pretender,  Madame  de  Talmond,  during  these 
desperate  years,  was  encouraging  his  son  in  every  kind 
of  folly.     It  was   she  who  was  held  responsible  for  his 
indifference  to  religion,  for  she  was  accused  with  having 
infected   him   with   her   free- thinking   principles.     And 
indeed  it  seems  probable  that  when  in  this  same   year 
Louis  XV.,  by  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  promised  to 
expel  Charles  from  his  dominions,  the  Princess  encouraged 
him  to  defy  the  French  monarch  and  refuse  to  go. 

At  that  time  Charles  was  daily  visiting  Madame  de 
Talmond  in  her  h6tel.  Her  husband  not  unnaturally 
objected  and  complained  to  the  King  that  every  day  the 
Prince  entered  his  gardens  uninvited,  and  walked  beneath 
his  windows.  Acting  on  the  King's  advice  apparently, 
the  Prince  de  Talmond  instructed  his  footmen  to  refuse 
Charles  admission.      Therefore,  one  day  when  the  Prince 

1  Entitled  "  La  Prison  du  Prince  Charles  Edouard  Stuart."  Published 
later  by  the  Due  de  Broglie,  in  "  La  Revue  d'Histoire  Diplomatique," 
No.  4,  Paris,  1891. 


264  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

arrived  as  usual  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  he  was 
told  that  no  one  was  at  home.  Flying  into  a  fury,  Charles 
declared  it  to  be  a  He.  But  it  was  perfectly  true,  for 
Madame  de  Talmond  had  gone  to  the  Queen.  She 
explained  to  her  lover  when  they  met  that  after  all  she 
must  obey  her  husband,  and  that  if  even  the  King  wished 
to  enter  her  house  against  her  husband's  will,  he  would 
be  refused  admission.  vSuch  defiance,  however,  only  pro- 
voked Charles  further.  At  eleven  o'clock  that  night  he  re- 
turned, and,  finding  all  doors  closed  against  him,  declared 
that  he  would  force  an  entrance.  It  was  only  with  the 
greatest  difficulty  that  his  companion,  Bulkeley,  a 
brother-in-law  of  Marshal  Berwick,  and  also  a  friend  of 
Montesquieu,  dissuaded  him  from  so  violent  and  un- 
dignified an  enterprise. 

This  incident  was  but  the  first  in  that  series  of  quarrels 
between  the  Prince  and  Madame  de  Talmond  which 
continued  throughout  their  liaison. 

A  few  days  later,  as  he  w^as  coming  out  of  the  opera, 
Charles  was  arrested  and  confined  in  the  chateau  of 
Vincennes.  At  the  same  time  one  of  the  Prince's  servants 
was  arrested  also.  Thereupon  his  mistress  wrote  curtly 
to  Maurepas  :  "  Sir,  the  King's  laurels  are  in  full  flower, 
and  the  imprisonment  of  my  lacquey  cannot  add  to  their 
glory.  I  pray  you  release  him."  Maurepas'  reply  to  this 
letter  was  the  banishment  of  the  Princess  herself ;  she 
was  bidden  retire  to  Torraine,  where  she  joined  her 
exiled  cousin  Stanislas.  Charles,  after  a  few  days'  im- 
prisonment in  the  fortress  of  Vincennes,  was  conducted 
out  of  Paris,  where  he  never  appeared  openly  again. 
Probably  he  went  for  a  short  time  to  Avignon.  But  for 
the  next  few  months  his  movements  mystified  all  the 
ministers  of  Europe,  who  hazarded  many  a  wild  guess 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  265 

as  to  his  whereabouts.  Mr.  Lang,  with  the  help  of  the 
Stuart  papers  at  Windsor,  has  traced  him  to  Lorraine, 
where  on  April  3rd,  1719,  he  was  residing  at  Luneville,  in 
the  house  of  Stanislas'  physician,  and  drawing  up  a  plan 
for  his  return  to  Paris. -^ 

Apparently  he  was  successful,  for  in  June  Mr.  Lang 
finds  him  in  the  French  capital.  Grimm,  the  Paris 
correspondent  of  the  Empress  Catherine  the  Great,  states 
that  in  this  city  he  was  in  hiding  for  the  next  three  years. 
More  probably  he  merely  visited  it,  in  disguise,  at  frequent 
intervals. 

It  is  fairly  certain  that  during  these  visits  his  place  of 
concealment  was  the  famous  convent  of  St.  Joseph,  in  the 
Rue  St.  Dominique  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain.  Madame 
de  Montespan,  Louis  XIV. 's  famous  mistress,  had  founded 
this  convent  when  her  reign  at  court  was  over.  Attached 
to  it  were  rooms  in  which  ladies  of  rank  might  make  a 
retreat  or  permanently  occupy  chambers.  Such  a  suite  of 
rooms  belonged  to  Madame  de  Talmond.  In  another 
Madame  du  Deffand  had  established  her  famous  salon, 
receiving,  in  her  yellow  moire  drawing-room,  decorated 
with  flame-coloured  rosettes,  the  greatest  wits  of  the  age. 
Into  this  yellow  salon,  in  the  early  hours  of  the  evening, 
Madame  du  Deffand's  romantic  young  companion,  Mdlle. 
de  Lespinasse,  used  to  descend  to  meet  a  few  of  the 
choicest  spirits,  and  furtively  skim  the  cream  of  the  con- 
versation before  her  aged  employer  appeared.  Here,  too, 
lived  a  lad}'  of  Jacobite  sympathies,  Madame  de  Vasse. 
She,  also,  had  a  gifted  young  companion,  Mdlle.  Ferrand, 
of  whom  we  shall  hear  more  hereafter. 

In   Madame   de   Talmond's   apartment   was   a   small 
dressing-room  which  could  be  approached  by  a  secret 
1  "  Pickle  the  Spy,"  p.  71. 


266  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

staircase.  And  here,  during  his  fugitive  visits  to  Paris, 
Charles  was  concealed.  In  this  retreat,  and  in  Madame 
du  Deffand's  rooms,  he  may  have  conferred  with  his 
supporters.  Bulkeley,  we  know,  attended  that  lady's 
famous  Monday  evenings,  and  Montesquieu,  another 
habitue,  had  pronounced  Jacobite  sympathies.  Charles 
seldom  ventured  out  of  doors,  although  once,  in  175 1, 
he  was  recognised  at  a  masked  ball  at  the  opera 
house. 

This  was  no  life  for  an  adventurous  high-spirited 
Prince.  The  society  of  philosophers  and  fair  females 
might  be  all  very  well  as  a  recreation,  but  when  Charles 
saw  no  one  else  day  or  night  he  grew  morbid  and  cantan- 
kerous, while  the  w^eakness  which  was  ultimately  to  prove 
his  ruin  began  to  grow  upon  him. 

Madame  de  Talmond,  for  her  part,  had  been  ready  to 
do  anything  for  her  bonnie  Prince,  when,  glorified  by  the 
romance  of  a  desperate  attempt  valiantly  hazarded  and 
bravely  lost,  he  had  appeared  in  Paris.  But  when  the 
months  dragged  on,  and  her  heroic  Prince  Charming  sank 
into  a  mere  hunted  fugitive,  she  began  to  grow  tired  of 
him.  Of  this  there  is  evidence  in  many  of  the  Windsor 
notes :  scribblings  of  violent  wrath  or  of  passionate 
affection  hastily  penned  in  reply  to  the  remonstrances  of 
Madame  de  Talmond,  who  is  addressed  as  L.  P.  D.  T.,  or 
as  Madame  de  Bauregor  (Beauregard).  In  one  of  these, 
with  mock  ceremony,  Charles  writes  : — 

"  We  undertake  in  every  point  to  carry  out  the  will  and 
the  arrangements  of  our  faithful  friend  and  ally,  L.  P.  D.  T. ; 
and  to  withdraw  at  such  hours  as  may  please  the  said  P., 
either  of  the  day  or  night,  from  her  estates,  in  testimony 
whereof  we  sign. — C."  ^ 

1  Nous  nous  prometons  de  suivre  en  tout  les  volontes  et  les  arrange- 
mens  de  notre  fidele  amie  et  alliee,  L.  P.  D.  T. ;   nous  retirer  aux  heures 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  267 

In  another  he  complains  of  his  lady's  persistence  in 
maintaining  even  in  the  most  palpable  matters  that  black 
is  white,  and  white  black,  and  refusing  to  acknowledge 
herself  in  the  wrong  even  when  she  felt  that  she  was. 
Such  charges  surely,  from  the  beginning  of  time,  in  every 
lover's  quarrel  have  been  levelled  by  the  man  against  the 
woman.  And  whether  they  arise  from  innate  feminine 
perversity  or  from  masculine  inability  to  adopt  the 
feminine  point  of  view,  who  would  venture  to  say  ? 

In  this  same  letter,  written  on  March  28th,  1750, 
Charles  continues  in  an  aggrieved  tone. 

"  If  you  don't  wish  to  help  me,  then  it  is  useless  for  me 
to  tell  you  of  my  concerns  ;  if  you  do  wish  to  protect  me, 
then  don't  make  my  life  unhappier  than  it  already  is. 
If  you  want  to  part  from  me,  then  tell  me  so  in  good 
French  or  Latin."  ^ 

Notwithstanding  their  disputes,  Madame  de  Talmond 
continued  to  influence  the  Prince.  And  it  was  probably 
by  her  advice  that  in  the  autumn  of  1750  Charles  indulged 
in  the  forlorn  hope  of  a  secret  expedition  to  England. 
Before  he  left  Paris,  he  committed  to  the  Princess's  care 
letters  to  be  given  to  Louis  XV.  in  the  event  of  Charles's 
death,  and  a  document  marked,  "  Credentials  given  ye 
1st  September,  1750,  to  ye  P.  T."  (Princesse  de  Talmond), 
asking  the  King  to  regard  "  Madame  La  P.  de  T.  ma  chere 

qu'il  lui  conviendra  a  la  ditte  P.,  soit  du  jour,  soit  de  nuit,  soit  de  ses 
6tats,  en  joy  de  quoi  nous  signons,  C."  Quoted  by  A.  Lang,  "  Pickle 
the  Spy,"  pp.  92 — 93. 

1  "  March  28,  1750.  A  Madame  Bauregor, — Si  vous  voules  me 
servire,  il  ne  faut  pas  me  soutenire  tou jours  que  Blan  (blanc)  est  noir, 
dans  les  choses  les  plus  palpable  :  et  jamais  Avouer  que  vous  aves  tort 
meme  quant  vous  le  santes.  Si  vous  ne  voules  pas  me  servire,  il  est 
inutile  que  je  vous  parle  de  ce  qui  me  regarde  :  si  vous  voules  me 
protege,  il  ne  faut  pas  me  rendre  La  Vie  plus  malheureuse  qu'il  n'est. 
Si  vous  voules  m'abandoner  il  faut  me  le  dire  en  bon  Francois  ou 
Latin."     Quoted  by  A.  Lang  {ibid.,  p.  95). 


268  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

cousine/'  as  the  Prince's  representative.  On  the  eve  of 
starting  Charles  commanded  from  Le  Brun  a  miniature  of 
himself  with  all  the  Orders,  which  Mr.  Lang  suggests  may 
have  been  a  parting  gift  to  Madame  de  Talmond. 

Apparently  no  plans  had  been  made  for  an  organised 
rising  in  the  Prince's  support.  Charles  probably  went 
over  partly  to  see  how  matters  stood,  and  partly  to  escape 
from  the  boredom  of  a  tedious  solitude  in  hiding,  broken 
only  by  daily  quarrels  and  reconciliations  with  Madame  de 
Talmond. 

In  London,  however,  Charles  ventured  to  stay  but  a 
few  weeks,  just  time  enough  to  become  a  member  of  the 
Church  of  England,  to  hold  a  secret  conference  with  his 
supporters  in  Pall  Mall,  to  inspect  the  defences  of  the 
Tower,  to  alarm  a  Jacobite  lady  by  appearing  unex- 
pectedly at  her  party,  and  to  drink  tea  with  a  Jacobite 
gentleman,  whose  servant  detected  a  resemblance  between 
his  master's  visitor  and  the  busts  of  the  Prince  which  were 
being  sold  in  Red  Lyon  Square.  Nevertheless,  despite 
the  lady's  alarm  and  the  servant's  discernment,  the 
English  Government,  searching  every  town  in  Europe  for 
the  Young  Pretender,  never  dreamt  of  his  being  at  their 
very  doors.  By  the  end  of  September  he  was  back  again 
in  Paris. 

Their  short  separation  had  rendered  the  lovers  more 
congenial  to  one  another  ;  and  among  the  Stuart  papers 
of  this  period  are  numerous  tiny  notes,  easily  concealed, 
and  doubtless,  says  Mr.  Lang,  ''  passed  to  the  lady 
furtively,"  in  which  Charles  protests  his  passionate 
adoration. 

But  this  billing  and  cooing  did  not  last  long.  The 
Prince  soon  began  to  suspect  Madame  de  Talmond  of 
betraying  him  politically,  while  the  Princess  was  ever 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  269 

haunted  by  suspicion  of  another  kind  of  treachery. 
Their  quarrels  grew  more  and  more  violent,  frequently 
culminating  in  blows,  until  the  other  inmates  of  St. 
Joseph  could  endure  such  scenes  no  longer,  and  Madame 
de  Vasse  insisted  on  the  pair  leaving  the  convent.  On 
the  eve  of  starting  for  Lorraine,  Madame  de  Talmond 
wrote  to  Charles  doubtfully  :  "If  you  are  to  me  that 
which  you  ought  to  be,  then  I  embrace  you  tenderly." 

Her  suspicions  increased  when  she  found  that  Charles 
was  corresponding  with  another  fair  resident  at  St.  Joseph, 
with  the  highly  gifted  and  philosophical  Mdlle.  Ferrand.-^ 
To  this  learned  lady  the  Prince,  always  a  voracious  reader, 
used  to  write  asking  for  all  manner  of  books,  from  works 
on  philosophy  to  the  popular  novels  of  the  day :  "  Clarissa 
Harlowe,"  "  Joseph  Andrews,"  and  *'  Tom  Jones,"  in 
French  as  well  as  English.  But  not  only  with  his  literary 
commissions  did  the  Prince  charge  his  erudite  correspon- 
dent :  she  was  requested  to  procure  for  him  such  homely 
articles  as  a  razor-case  with  four  razors,  a  shaving-mirror, 
and  a  strong  pocket-book  with  a  lock.  There  is  no  reason 
to  believe,  however,  that  Mdlle.  Ferrand  in  her  short 
life — for  she  died  when  quite  young,  in  1752 — ever  became 
more  than  a  friend  to  the  Prince,  although  Madame  de 
Talmond  persuaded  herself  of  the  contrary.  And  it  was 
chiefly  the  Princess's  jealousy  of  Mdlle.  Ferrand  that 
caused  her  to  leave  the  Prince  late  in  1750.  After  this 
rupture,  in  Charles's  letters  to  Mdlle.  Ferrand,  the  once 
adored  cousin  figures  as  "la  vieille  tante  "  or  "la  vieille 
femme.*'  And  matters  were  not  improved  when  the 
Prince's  correspondent  showed  one  of  these  letters  to 
the    lady    in    question.     But    such    indiscretions    were 

*  Mr.  Lang  in  "  Pickle  the  Spy  "  claims  to  have  identified  her  with 
a  Mdlle.  Luci  of  Charles's  correspondence. 


270  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

necessarily  rare,  for  the  ladies,  as  may  be  imagined,  were 
not  often  on  speaking  terms.  Their  intercourse  was 
generally  carried  on  in  a  series  of  dignified  notes,  many 
of  which,  copied  in  the  Prince's  own  handwriting,  are 
preserved  among  the  Stuart  papers. 

The  "  last  words  "  between  Charles  and  Madame  de 
Talmond  were  exchanged  in  the  summer  of  175 1.  Mdlle. 
Ferrand  died  in  the  autumn  of  the  following  year.  By 
that  time  Charles  had  returned  to  his  former  mistress. 
Miss  Walkinshaw. 

As  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  Charles  and  the  Princess 
never  met  again.  Years  afterwards,  in  1765,  Madame  de 
Talmond  was  in  Rome.  And  then  Cardinal  York  wrote 
to  his  brother  : — 

"  She  (the  Princess)  alw^ays  speaks  of  your  Royal 
Highness  with  the  greatest  regard  and  respect,  and  really 
seems  to  be  sincerely  attached  to  you.  She  complains 
that  she  never  can  hear  of  you,  and  thinks  she  deserves  a 
share  in  your  remembrance." 

The  Princess  had  then  been  six  years  a  widow.  Her 
much-tried  husband  before  his  death  had  persuaded  her 
to  renounce  her  philosophical  opinions  and  return  to  the 
Catholic  Church.     She  was  now  extremely  devout. 

In  the  following  year  she  was  at  Paris  occupying 
"  charitable  apartments  ''  in  the  Luxembourg.  And  it 
was  there  that  Horace  Walpole  visited  her. 

With  the  affectation  of  a  man  of  the  world,  Walpole, 
writing  to  his  friend  Gray,  would  have  him  believe  that  it 
was  something  of  a  bore  to  be  obliged  to  visit  this  middle- 
aged  Princess.  But  in  reality  he  must  have  been  curious 
to  see  the  fair  shrew  about  whose  quarrels  with  her 
princely   lover   he   must   frequently   have    heard    from 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  271 

his  ''  old  blind  one/'   as  he  called  his  friend   Madame 
du  Deffand. 

"  I  have  been  sent  for  about  like  an  African  prince  or  a 
learned  canary-bird/'  he  writes,  "  and  was,  in  particular, 
carried  by  force  to  the  Princess  of  Talmond,  the  Queen's 
cousin,  who  lives  in  a  charitable  apartment  in  the  Luxem- 
bourg, and  was  sitting  on  a  small  bed  hung  with  saints  and 
Sobieskis,  in  a  corner  of  one  of  those  vast  chambers,^  lit 
by  two  blinking  tapers/' 

When  after  stumbling  over  a  dog,  a  cat,  a  footstool, 
and  other  things,  Walpole  reached  her  presence,  she  had 
not  a  syllable  to  say  to  him.  But  the  spirit  of  earlier 
days,  when  for  her  men  had  existed  only  to  receive  her 
commands,  soon  returned,  and  before  her  visitor  left  she 
had  so  far  recovered  her  conversational  powers  as  to  beg 
him  to  send  her  a  lap-dog. 

Not  long  afterwards,  Walpole,  writing  to  George 
Montagu,  relates  how  one  morning  the  Princess  sent  him 
a  picture  of  two  pug  dogs  and  a  black  and  white  greyhound 
wretchedly  painted.  At  first  Walpole  could  not  conceive 
what  he  was  to  do  with  "  this  daub,"  but  in  an  accompany- 
ing note  the  Princess  warned  him  not  to  hope  to  keep  it. 
It  was  only  to  imprint  on  his  memory  the  size  and  features 
and  spots  of  "  Diana,"  her  departed  greyhound,  in  order 
that  he  might  get  her  exactly  such  another.  "  Don't  you 
think  my  memory  will  return  well  stored,"  asked  the 
cavalier,  "  if  it  is  littered  with  defunct  lap-dogs  ?  She  is 
so  devout  that  I  did  not  dare  send  her  word  that  I  am  not 
possessed  of  a  twig  of  Jacob's  broom,  with  which  he 
streaked  cattle  as  he  pleased." 

This  for  some  time  appeared  to  be  our  last  glimpse  of 

^  Horace  Walpole,  "  Letters,"  ed.  Cunningham,  IV.,  472,  490  ;  and 
"  Lettres  de  la  Marquise  du  Deffand  ^  Horace  Walpole,"  ed.  Paget 
Toynbee,  191 2,  II.,  565,  note. 


272  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

the  Princesse  de  Talmond.  But  in  the  recently  pubHshed 
letters  of  Madame  du  Deffand  to  Horace  Walpole^we 
find  that  brilliant  and  malicious  lady  giving  an  inimitable 
description  of  the  Princess's  death-bed  scene. 

In  a  letter  dated  December  29th,  1773,  Madame  du 
Deffand  writes  : — 

"  I  may  tell  you  that  this  letter  will  not  be  long.  For 
the  news  I  have  to  announce  is  not  sufficiently  interesting 
to  require  me  to  sacrifice  my  hope  of  sleep.  That  hope 
will  be  vain  perhaps.  I  have  long  lost  the  habit  of 
sleeping.  But  Madame  de  Talmond  has  lost  the  habit 
of  living.  So  she  has  surpassed  me.  She  died  on  the  25th 
of  this  month  like  a  veritable  heroine  of  romance. 

''  On  the  eve  of  her  death  she  had  her  doctors,  her  con- 
fessor and  her  steward  round  her  bed.  To  her  doctors  she 
said  :  '  Gentlemen,  you  have  killed  me,  but  it  was  accord- 
ing to  your  rules  and  your  principles  ;'  to  her  confessor  : 
'  You  have  done  your  duty  by  inspiring  me  with  great 
terror  '  ;  to  her  steward  :  '  You  are  here  at  the  request 
of  my  servants,  who  wish  me  to  make  my  will.  You  are 
all  playing  your  parts  well,  but  you  will  agree  that  I  also 
am  not  playing  mine  badly.' 

*'  Then  she  confessed,  received  the  Communion,  and 
added  a  codicil  to  her  will  which  she  had  made  some  time 
before.  Madame  Adelaide  ^  she  created  her  sole  legatee. 
Her  jewels  she  bequeathed  to  Madame  Adelaide  and  her 
sisters,^  her  watch  and  her  porcelain  to  M.  de  Maurepas, 
and  small  legacies  to  old  friends  with  whom  she  had 
quarrelled,  and  who  had  figured  in  her  former  will  which 
she  had  not  revoked.  For  her  burial,"  concluded 
Madame  du  Deffand,  ''  the  Princess  had  prepared  a  gown 
of  blue  and  silver  and  a  beautiful  lace  cap ;  but  the  Arch- 
bishop, disapproving  of  such  display,  commanded  that 
gown  and  cap  should  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor." 

^  Ed.  cit.,  1912,  II.,  564 — 565. 
2  Louis  XV. 's  eldest  daughter, 
^  A  toutes  mesdames. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION    273 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  FAMILY  DURING  THE  REVOLUTION. 
1764— 1839. 

One  can  hardly  imagine  irony  more  grim  than  that 
with  which,  on  the  verge  of  the  Revolution,  the  pastoral 
pictures  of  the  French  nobility  represent  France  as  a  land 
where  it  is  always  afternoon.  In  these  pictures,  the 
inhabitants  of  France  seem  to  have  no  other  care  than  to 
play  at  being  peasants  and  peasantesses,  and  to  follow  the 
example  set  by  their  fascinating  Queen,  who,  in  white 
cambric  frock,  straw  hat  and  muslin  fichu,  superintends 
the  milking  of  cows  in  her  hameau  at  Versailles. 

Then,  as  now,  the  simple  life  was  all  the  fashion.  To  the 
rumbling  thunder  of  the  Revolution  these  fine  folk  in 
their  mock  simplicity  turned  a  deaf  ear.  If  ever  an  echo 
of  its  rolling  broke  in  upon  their  complacence  they  drowned 
it  by  tuning  up  their  violins  for  villagers  to  dance  to. 

Such  thoughts  are  suggested  by  an  interesting  La 
Tremoille  group  which  represents  the  Ducal  family 
some  ten  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution.-^ 
Here  the  Duke  and  Duchess,  Jean  Bretagne^  and  Marie  de 
Salm,  seated  upon  a  rock,  in  a  garden,  with  a  rivulet 
flowing  at  their  feet,  are  surrounded  by  their  four  sons, 
boys  of  some  ten  or  twelve  summers,  all  busily  engaged 
in  various  rural  pursuits. 

1  Reproduced  in  "  Souvenirs  de  la  Revolution,"  published  by  Duke 
Louis  Charles,  1901. 


1737— 1792. 


C.R. 


274  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

The  Prince  Talmond/  who  was  to  die  a  brave  death  in 
La  Vendee,  is  placidly  watering  plants ;  while  his  twin 
brother,  Charles  Auguste,^  whose  own  head  was  to  fall 
beneath  the  guillotine,  here,  armed  with  garden  shears, 
is  apparently  intent  on  himself  decapitating  innocent 
flowers.  The  other  two  brothers,  eldest  and  youngest  of 
the  family,  the  Prince  de  Tarente  ^  and  the  Prince  de  La 
Tremoille,*  both  destined  to  wander  through  Europe 
serving  in  foreign  armies  against  their  Sans-culottes 
countrymen,  now,  equipped  one  with  gun  the  other  with 
fishing  rod,  figure  as  the  sportsmen  of  this  family  picture. 

Real  country  life  played  no  part  in  the  upbringing  of 
these  four  brothers.  The  La  Tremoilles  had  long  ago 
forsaken  their  country  castles  for  residence  in  Paris. 
There  Duke  Jean  occupied  a  hotel  in  the  Palais  Royal, 
which  was  then  the  most  fashionable  quarter. 

With  the  shifting  of  the  centre  of  fashion  from  the  left 
to  the  right  bank  of  the  Seine,  the  La  Tremoilles  had 
abandoned  their  beautiful  mansion,^  one  of  the  finest 
gems  of  fifteenth  century  architecture,  which  the  great 
Louis  de  La  Tremoille  had,  in  1490,  built  near  the 
Luxembourg. 

Then,  as  now,  however,  the  intellectual  centre  con- 
tinued on  the  left  bank,  and  it  was  at  the  college  of  Plessis, 
incorporated  by  Cardinal  Richelieu's  will  with  the 
Sorbonne,  that  Duke  Jean's  sons  were  educated.     After  a 

1  Antoine  Philippe  de  La  Tremoille,  1765 — 1794. 

2  He  became  Dean  of  Strasbourg,  and  was  executed  in  June,  1794. 
^  Charles  Bretagne,  later  Due  de  La  Tremoille,  1764 — 1839. 

*  Louis  Stanislas  Kotzka,   1768 — 1837. 

*  See  Viollet-le-Duc,  "  Dictionnaire  Raisonn6  de  1' Architecture  Fran- 
caise,"  1858 — 1868,  VI.,  282 — 284.  Its  chief  entrance  was  in  the 
Rue  des  Bourdonnais,  but  its  garden  extended  to  the  Rue  Tirechappe. 
In  1840  the  hotel  was  still  standing.  Then  Viollet-le-Duc,  in  collabora- 
tion with  the  Commissioners  of  Historical  Monuments,  endeavoured  in 
vain  to  save  it  from  destruction.  All  he  could  do  was  to  procure  the 
preservation  in  the  Musee  des  Beaux  Arts  of  a  few  of  its  fragments. 


FACADE  OF  THE  HOTEL  DE  LA  TREMOILLE  AT  PARIS 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  275 

few  years  at  college  three  of  the  princes,  Charles  Bretagne, 
Antoine  Philippe  and  Louis  Stanislas,  entered  the  army. 
Charles  Auguste  took  orders  and  became  eventually  Dean 
of  Strasbourg. 

The  eldest  son,  Charles,  Prince  de  Tarente,  was  married 
young,  when  a  mere  boy,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  to  a  great 
heiress,  Emmannuelle,  the  Duchesse  de  Chatillon's  second 
daughter,  who  was  a  year  and  a  half  her  husband's  senior. 
In  the  Prince's  extremely  frank  Recollections,-^  written 
after  the  turmoil  of  the  Revolution  had  subsided,  he 
admits  that  at  the  time  of  their  marriage,  his  bride's  only 
attraction  was  her  expectation  of  an  income  of  200,000 
francs.  For,  as  a  girl  of  seventeen,  Emmannuelle,  who 
was  later  to  develop  into  a  handsome  woman,  was  nothing 
but  a  shy  gawky  miss.  From  so  unalluring  a  wife, 
Emmannuelle's  boy  bridegroom  did  not  grieve  to  find 
himself  compelled  to  part  immediately  after  the  nuptial 
ceremony  by  a  summons  to  join  his  regiment  in  Normandy. 

Their  military  duties  left  the  La  Tremoille  princes 
ample  time  for  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  which  they  eagerly 
followed,  not  along  those  rural  paths  which  their  family 
portrait  might  suggest,  but  amidst  the  gaieties  and 
dissipations  of  towns  and  watering-places,  where  the 
playthings  they  most  affected  were  not  garden  shears  or 
watering-pots  or  pruning  hooks  so  much  as  race-horses, 
cards  and  the  wiles  of  fair  women. 

Brave  soldiers  they  all  were,  but  voluptuaries  too. 
The  Prince  de  Tarente  in  his  Recollections  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  confess  as  much.  There  he  admits  that  at  nineteen 
he  lost  a  fortune  in  one  bout  of  card-playing  which  lasted 
twenty-four    continuous   hours,    and    that    to   pay   his 

1  Published  by  his  son,  Duke  Louis  Charles,  in  "  Les  La  Tr^moilles 
pendant  cinq.  Si^cles,"  Vol.  V.  Passages  from  them  also  the  Dufte 
has  included  in  "  Les  Souvenirs  de  La  Princesse  de  Tarente." 

T  Z 


276  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

gambling  debts  his  mother  persuaded  the  Duke,  his 
father,  to  mortgage  lands  near  Thouars. 

After  this  disaster  the  Prince  de  Tarente  vowed  to 
abjure  cards,  and  to  the  letter  of  his  resolution  he 
vigorously  adhered  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  But  other 
games  of  chance  as  well  as  amours,  horse-racing,  and  at 
least  two  duels  contributed  to  his  adventurous  career  an 
equal  excitement. 

This  gay  life,  doubtless  the  typical  existence  of  many  a 
young  French  noble  of  that  time,  the  Prince  frankly 
describes  in  his  Souvenirs  : — 

"  For  two  summers,"  he  writes,  "  I  visited  the  Spa  of 
Plombieres,  where  I  ran  my  horses  against  the  English, 
among  others  the  Duke  of  Bedford.-^  My  losses  were 
about  equal  to  my  gains.  But  the  dash  I  was  cutting 
attracted  the  attention  of  a  lady,  who  was  then  the  rage, 
rather  for  her  wit  than  her  beauty,  for  her  face  was 
merely  fresh  and  animated.  With  my  philosophical 
(sic)  ideas  as  to  the  fairness  of  women  I  should  have 
preferred  a  pretty,  fresh  grisette  to  a  princess  devoid  of 
those  real  attractions  ;  so  I  began  by  chaffing  the  assiduous 
courtiers  of  this  queen  of  fashion.  She,  piqued  by  my 
behaviour,  swore  to  attach  me  to  her  train.  She 
succeeded.  Nevertheless  I  remained  heart-whole,  and 
my  flattered  pride  was  the  only  tie  which  for  four  or 
five  years  bound  me  to  her." 

The  Prince  de  Tarente  was  the  most  dissipated  of  the 
three  brothers.  But  Antoine,  the  La  Vendee  hero,  was 
almost  as  much  addicted  to  pleasure.  At  twenty -five  he 
was  already  afflicted  with  the  family's  tendency  to 
corpulence,  and  with  so  much  more  than  a  tendency  to  the 
family  gout  that  at  times  during  the  La  Vendee  campaigns 

1  This  was  Fox's  famous  friend,  and  Burke's  Mte  noir,  ruthlessly- 
satirised  in  the  "  Anti- Jacobin." 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  277 

he  was  disabled  from  going  into  action.  This  weakness, 
however,  did  not  prevent  him  from  playing  a  heroic  part 
during  the  La  Vendee  struggle.  Yet  war  did  not  absorb 
him  so  deeply  but  that  he  found  time  during  its  progress 
for  more  than  one  amorous  intrigue. 

Prince  Louis  de  La  Tremoille,  the  youngest  of  the  three 
brothers,  served  the  royal  cause  as  a  soldier  in  La  Vendee 
and  as  a  diplomat  at  various  European  courts.  Yet  he, 
too,  was  capable  of  controlling  his  royalist  ardour  in  order 
for  a  while  to  pursue  his  own  interest.  For  some  years 
during  the  Revolution  period  he  became  a  fortune-hunter, 
and  we  shall  find  him  dancing  attendance  on  his  aged 
kinswoman  Sophie,  Countess  Bentinck,^  in  the  vain  hope 
that  she  would  make  him  her  heir. 

It  was  probably  soon  after  the  famous  Quatorze  Juillet 
that  Duke  Jean  and  his  Duchess  committed  what  the 
Republicans  described  as  "  the  crime  of  emigration,"  and 
sought  refuge  in  Savoy,  turning  their  backs  upon  a  land 
which,  in  their  opinion,  hordes  of  barbarians  were  striving 


1  Table  showing  the  relationship  of  Sophie,   Countess  Bentinck,   to 
the  La  Tr^moilles  : — 

Charles  Henry,  Prince  de  Tarente,  d.  1 670. 


Charles  Hollande,  Charlotte  Am^lie, 

Due  de  La  Tremoille.  Comtesse  d'Altenburg. 

Charles  Bretagne,  Anthony,  Comte  d'Altenburg. 

Due  de  La  Tremoille.  I 

I  I 

Charles  Armand  Rene,  Sophie,  m.  Count  Bentinck, 

Due  de  La  Tremoille.  2nd  son  of  the  ist  Earl  of 

I  Portland. 

Jean  Bretagne, 
Due  de  La  Tremoille. 
I 

Charles  Bretagne,       Louis,  Prince  de 
Due  de  La  Tremoille.       La  Tremoille. 


278  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

to  convert  "  into  a  savage  country  peopled  by  a  few 
tribes  of  cannibals."  But  the  La  Tremoilles  had  a 
further  inducement  for  their  flight,  in  the  fact  that  the 
Duchess  was  suffering  from  consumption,  of,  which  she 
died  at  Nice  in  1790. 

Round  their  beloved  mother's  death-bed  gathered  her 
four  sons,  coming,  three  of  them  from  France,  and  the 
eldest,  Charles  Bretagne,  from  Turin,  which  was  then  the 
headquarters  of  the  royal  princes.  After  the  funeral  of 
the  Duchess,  leaving  their  father  with  his  youngest  son  in 
Savoy,  where  two  years  later,  in  May,  1792,  the  Duke 
died  at  Chambery,  the  La  Tremoille  brothers  dispersed, 
never,  all  four  of  them,  to  meet  again.  Two,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  to  perish  during  the  Revolution ;  two,  after 
many  adventures  in  various  countries  of  Europe,  returned 
with  ruined  fortunes  and  disappointed  hopes,  to  settle  in 
their  native  land. 

A  few  months  after  Duke  Jean's  death,  the  Revolution 
Government,  seized  the  La  Tremoille  estates,  by  virtue 
of  two  laws  passed  by  the  Legislative  Assembly  decree- 
ing the  confiscation  of  emigrants'  property.  In  vain  did 
the  family  represent  that  Duke  Jean  was  not  an  emigre, 
having  left  France  on  account  of  his  wife's  health  ;  the 
Revolutionaries  continued  to  hold  those  vast  domains  in 
the  west,  accumulated  in  La  Tremoille  hands  throughout 
five  centuries.  Seven  years  later  by  the  Directory's 
order  we  find  the  Thouars  lands  being  sold  by  auction 
for  the  State's  benefit. 

At  the  time  of  her  mother-in-law's  death,  the  Prince  de 
Tarente's  wife,  Emmannuelle  de  Chatillon,  was  in  Paris. 
In  1785  she  had  become  lady-in-waiting  to  Marie 
Antoinette  ;  and  with  the  beautiful  Queen  whom  she 
adored,  she    remained    through   all   the    crises    of    the 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  279 

Revolution  until  that  fatal  day  when  V Autrichienne  was 
imprisoned  in  the  Temple. 

So,  while  her  husband  had  been  flaunting  fashion  at 
race-courses  and  spas,  the  Princesse  de  Tarente  had 
remained  in  the  heart  of  things  at  Paris.  She  had  now 
grown  into  a  beautiful,  clever  woman.  And  La  Tremoille 
in  describing  his  dissipations  at  Plombieres  boasts  of  his 
conjugal  fidehty  : — 

"  All  this  while,"  he  writes,  "  I  did  not  neglect  my 
wife.  Her  only  failing  was  that  she  did  not  bear 
me  children.  However,  in  the  winter  of  17S8 — 9,  she 
gave  birth  to  a  daughter,  whom  we  called  Caroline.  I 
learnt  her  death  in  the  beginning  of  1791,  at  Turin,  that 
earUest  nest  of  the  emigrants,  where  I  had  joined  the 
Comte  d'Artois.'* 

Emmannuelle  de  Chatillon  can  never  have  laboured 
under  any  illusion  with  regard  to  her  husband.  From 
her  wedding  day,  when  he  left  her  at  the  church  door, 
until  the  end  of  her  life,  she  seems  to  have  regarded  him  as 
a  wayward  child.  Her  affection  for  the  Queen  was  her 
great  passion  ;  and  when  the  Prince  de  Tarente  wrote 
asking  his  wife  to  join  him  abroad,  she  refused  to  forsake 
her  mistress. 

The  Princess  as  well  as  her  husband  has  left  us  her 
recollections.  In  the  thrilling  pages  of  this,  one  of 
the  most  interesting  of  Revolution  records,  the  writer, 
with  graphic  pen,  describes  the  most  stirring  events  of 
those  stirring  times,  from  the  terrible  October  days 
when  the  Baker,  the  Baker's  wife  and  the  Baker's  boy 
were  brought  by  a  howling  mob  from  Versailles  to  Paris, 
all  through  the  confinement  of  that  Baker's  family  in  the 
Tuileries,  until  the  fatal  morning  of  August  loth,  1792, 


28o  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

when  they  walked  into  the  Hon's  mouth  and  took  refuge 
with  the  Assembly. 

From  a  window  in  the  Palace,  on  that  sad  morning,  the 
Princess  watched  her  beloved  Queen,  with  her  husband, 
children  and  sister-in-law,  walk  across  the  gardens  to  the 
Monastery  of  the  Feuillants,  there  to  throw  themselves  on 
the  mercy  of  the  Convention.  Madame  de  Tarente  then 
little  thought  that  she  was  gazing  on  her  adored  sovereign 
for  the  last  time  :  she  expected  the  royal  family  to 
return  in  an  hour  or  so.  But  very  soon  after  their 
departure  the  sound  of  firing  was  heard,  and  the  noise  of 
the  mob  breaking  into  the  Palace.  The  Princess  with 
other  ladies  of  the  Queen's  suite  locked  themselves  in  one 
of  the  royal  apartments.  There,  like  persons  frightened 
by  a  thunderstorm,  they  drew  down  the  blinds,  closed  the 
shutters  and  lit  all  the  candles,  hoping  thus  to  shut  out 
the  hideous  yells  of  the  mob,  the  noise  of  firing,  and  the 
sight  of  the  grim  scenes  which  were  being  enacted  in  the 
Palace  gardens.  But  the  infuriated  horde  soon  broke 
through  all  the  bolts  and  bars  which  these  defenceless 
women  had  erected  against  them.  In  the  midst  of  the 
panic  and  confusion  which  ensued  one  of  the  invaders,  his 
dark  heart  illuminated  by  a  flash  of  pity,  cried,  "  don't 
hurt  the  women."  Madame  de  Tarente  immediately 
seized  her  opportunity,  and  entreating  mercy,  obtained 
protection  for  herself,  for  a  young  girl  who  had  been  com- 
mitted to  her  charge,  and  for  an  elderly  lady.  Their 
deliverer,  conducting  them  through  the  desolated  Palace, 
past  the  dead  bodies  of  the  King's  retainers,  brought  them 
out  by  a  side  door  on  to  the  quay  near  the  Pont  Royal. 
There  he  left  them  to  contend  alone  with  new  adventures. 
Making  their  way  along  the  lower  path  by  the  riverside, 
the  fugitives  attracted  the  attention  of  loiterers  on  the 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  281 

opposite  bank  :  they  were  fired  upon  and  then  seized  by 
a  group  of  Revolutionaries.  Dragged  in  the  broihng 
August  sun  across  the  Place  Louis  Quinze/  these  unhappy 
women  were  taken  to  a  committee  of  the  Section  sitting 
in  the  Rue  Neuve-des-Capucins.  There,  in  a  member  of 
the  committee  they  were  fortunate  in  finding  a  protector. 
Dismissing  the  angry  mob  with  the  promise  that  the 
captives  should  be  brought  to  justice,  he  welcomed  the 
ladies  kindly  and,  after  their  pursuers  had  dispersed,  sent 
them  well  guarded  to  the  house  of  Madame  de  Tarente's 
grandmother,  the  Duchesse  de  la  Valliere. 

In  her  grandmother's  house  for  some  days  the  Princess 
remained  in  concealment,  longing  to  join  her  Queen  in  the 
Temple  prison,  and  filled  with  envy  when  the  young 
companion  of  her  escape,  Pauline  de  Tourzel,  was  sum- 
moned to  her  Sovereign's  side. 

It  was  not  the  Temple  but  the  Abbaye  prison  that 
awaited  Madame  de  Tarente.  Her  hiding  place  was  dis- 
covered, and  to  the  Abbaye,  after  trial  by  one  of  the 
Revolution  committees,  she  was  taken  on  August  27th. 
Her  entrance  into  that  grim  abode  she  has  vividly  de- 
scribed in  her  Recollections.  Dragged  through  what 
appeared  hke  a  narrow  slit  in  the  wall,  as  the  prison  door 
banged  behind  her,  its  noise  resounded  to  the  depths  of  her 
heart. 

"  At  the  sound  of  the  shooting  of  the  bolts,'*  she 
writes,  "  I  felt  myself  cut  off  from  the  whole  world.  It 
was  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening.  A  horrible  smell  of  gin 
made  me  feel  sick.  With  morbid  curiosity  I  gazed  around 
me,  but  could  see  nothing." 

For  eight  days  Madame  de  Tarente  remained  in  the 
Abbaye.     On  September  2nd  began  the  terrible  prison 

^  Now  Place  de  la  Concorde. 


282  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

massacres.  All  the  hideous  scenes  of  those  two  black 
days  and  nights  the  Princess  paints  in  striking  colours. 
She  herself  only  narrowly  escaped  sharing  the  horrible 
fate  of  the  Princesse  de  Lamballe.  By  a  marvellous  piece 
of  good  fortune,  Madame  de  Tarente's  sufferings  had  from 
the  first  inspired  pity  in  the  heart  of  a  certain  M.  Chancey, 
a  member  of  the  committee  which  had  tried  her.  Now 
for  the  second  time  she  owed  her  deliverance  to  a  Revo- 
lutionary. And  it  was  through  M.  Chancey's  efforts, 
seconded  by  what  can  only  be  described  as  wonderful  good 
luck,  that  the  Princess  escaped  with  her  life. 

Into  the  gory  hands  of  the  murderous  mob  pressing 
round  the  prison  gates  like  hungry  beasts  of  prey,  Madame 
de  Tarente  was  delivered,  not  as  a  victim  to  be  slaughtered, 
but  as  a  captive  wrongly  accused,  whose  innocence  had 
now  been  estabhshed.  "  A  triumph  for  Madame,"  cried 
her  saviour.  Two  hundred  voices  echoed,  "  A  triumph 
for  Madame."  And  almost  fainting,  but  clutching 
tightly  in  her  hand  the  dirty,  crumpled,  mud-bespattered 
scrap  of  paper,  which  was  the  charter  of  her  liberty,  the 
Princess  was  raised  shoulder  high  and  carried  through  the 
crowd,  who  as  warmly  applauded  her  escape  as  but  a  few 
moments  before  they  had  welcomed  the  dying  groans  of 
their  victims.  Entering  a  carriage  waiting  at  the  end  of 
the  street,  Madame  de  Tarente  was  driven  to  the  house  of 
her  mother,  the  Duchesse  de  Chatillon,  in  the  Rue  du  Bac. 

But  there  the  Queen's  ci-devant  lady-in-waiting  was  by 
no  means  safe  from  Republican  hatred  ;  and  so,  yielding 
to  her  friends'  entreaties,  she  consented  to  emigrate.  At 
six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  on  September  13th,  accom- 
panied by  her  brother-in-law,  Antoine  PhiUppe,  Prince  de 
Talmond,  she  passed  through  the  garden  gate  of  the 
Duchess's  house  and  walked  down  to  the  Pont  Royal, 


MARIE    ANTOINETTE    AFTER   THE    KING'S    DEATH 
From  a  portrait  drawn  in  the  Temple  and  presented  to  the  Princesse  de  Tarente 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  283 

where  she  entered  a  cab,  a  curious  kind  of  a  vehicle,  so  it 
seemed  to  her,  for  an  aristocrat  to  drive  in.  By  this 
plebeian  mode  of  conveyance  she  reached  Amiens. 
Thence  the  bourgeois  cab  returned  to  Paris,  while  its 
occupants  in  a  phaeton  continued  their  way  as  far  as 
Boulogne. 

There,  having  been  warned  that  Revolutionary  agents 
were  observing  their  movements,  it  was  deemed  dangerous 
to  wait  for  the  packet  which  should  start  for  England  on 
the  morrow.  So,  at  midnight,  crouching  in  the  hold  of  a 
dirty  little  boat,  to  which  she  had  been  carried  by  a  still 
dirtier  sailor,  Madame  de  Tarente  Wc^tched  the  dark  blue 
sky,  the  glittering  stars  and  the  receding  shores  of  France. 

The  land  of  her  birth  she  was  never  to  see  again,  except 
once,  years  later,  when  for  a  brief  space,  before  starting 
for  a  distant  land,  she  returned  to  visit  her  little  daughter's 
grave. 

In  this  hazardous  voyage  the  Princess  was  still  accom- 
panied by  her  faithful  brother-in-law,  Talmond,  who 
but  a  few  months  later  was  to  give  his  life  for  the  King  in 
La  Vendee.  This  was  Talmond's  second  visit  to  England 
that  year.  During  the  Revolution  period  the  La  Tremoille 
brothers  were  constantly  crossing  the  Channel  to  visit 
their  friends  among  the  EngHsh  aristocracy,  and  to  solicit 
aid  from  the  English  Government  for  the  royal  cause  in 
France. 

Among  the  La  Tremoilles'  friends  in  England  was  the 
Marquis  of  Queensberry,  the  famous  "  old  Q."  He  now 
placed  at  the  Princess's  disposal  his  beautiful  villa  at 
Richmond,  where,  during  her  five  years'  residence  ^  in 
England,  Madame  de  Tarente  dwelt,  in  company  with 

^  1792 — 1797. 


284  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

that  fair  lady  of  disputed  parentage,  Maria  Fagniani 
afterwards  Countess  of  Yarmouth.^ 

It  was  at  Richmond  that  the  Princess  wrote  her 
Recollections.  And  it  was  there  that  she  was  rejoined  by 
her  husband.  The  Prince  de  Tarente,  or  Due  de  La 
Tremoille,^  as  he  now  by  courtesy  might  be  called,  his 
father  having  died  in  this  year,  was  then  living  with  other 
French  nobles  in  a  house  at  Bedford.  After  a  series  of 
disasters  resulting  from  what  he  has  himself  described  as 
"  his  natural  frivolity  and  thoughtlessness,"  his  estate  had 
been  considerably  reduced,  and,  when  his  wife  arrived  in 
England,  the  Duke  was  in  great  financial  embarrassment. 

The  story  of  his  life  since  his  mother's  death  in  1790 
is  the  record  of  constant  wanderings  through  Europe  in 
search  of  pleasure,  or  in  the  performance  of  some  diplo- 
matic mission — driving  in  a  cabriolet  from  Turin  to 
Rome,  and  from  Rome  to  Mantua,  riding  post-haste, 
almost  incessantly,  so  he  says,  for  four  days  and  five 
nights  from  Mantua  to  Nice.  Then  there  followed  a  gay 
winter  in  London,  where  the  Prince  of  Wales  regarded 
him  as  a  leader  of  fashion,  admiring  his  shoe-buckles  and 
borrowing  his  valet.  In  the  spring,  in  the  midst  of  a  ball, 
where  he  was  "  dancing  with  a  fair  one  who  was  by  no 
means  deaf  to  his  gallant  propositions,"  the  news  of  the 
French  Republic's  declaration  of  war  summoned  him 
back  to  the  Continent. 

Joining  the  Comte  d'Artois,  to  whom  he  became  aide- 
de-camp.  La  Tremoille  soon  found  himself  at  Coblentz, 
where  he  was  bored  to  death  by  the  constant  bickerings  of 
the  royalist  leaders,  and  by  the  seriousness  of  the  emigre 
women. 

1  Both  "Q."  and  George  Selwyn  claimed  to  be  her  father. 

2  All  titles  of  nobility  had  been  abolished  by  the  National  Assembly 
in  the  early  days  of  the  Revolution. 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  285 

"The  ladies  here  freeze  me/'  he  wrote  to  the  Duchesse 
de  Piennes  in  England.  "  For  the  five  days  I  have  been 
here  I  have  not  been  able  to  say  a  single  word  to  them  .  .  . 
I  can't  endure  women  who  want  to  direct  empires  and  who 
think  of  anything  save  their  own  and  others'  pleasure." 

Over  the  campaign  of  1792  the  Prince  in  his  Recollec- 
tions passes  lightly,  forbearing  to  mention  that  at  his  own 
expense  he  raised  and  equipped  a  company  of  hussars. 

At  the  close  of  the  campaign,  when  the  army  went  into 
winter  quarters,  he  obtained  permission  to  go  to  Vienna, 
where  he  hoped  to  obtain  an  imperial  fief  to  compensate 
for  his  lost  French  estates. 

The  gaieties  of  his  life  in  London  during  the  previous 
winter  and  of  a  visit  to  the  waters  of  Spa  in  the  spring, 
combined  with  the  expenses  of  the  war,  had  drained  his 
purse.  And  in  order  to  recover  his  fortunes,  La  Tremoille 
listened  readily  to  an  adventurer,  one  Comte  Armand, 
whom  he  met  on  the  road  to  Vienna,  and  who  boasted 
that  he  was  possessed  of  an  infallible  tip  for  winning  huge 
sums  at  rouge  et  noir.  Count  Armand  attached  himself 
to  the  Duke,  and  soon  became  his  evil  genius.  It  was  at 
the  Count's  suggestion  that,  in  order  to  obtain  money  for 
his  hazardous  play.  La  Tremoille  borrowed  from  the 
confiding  Due  de  Richelieu,  then  at  Vienna,  a  valuable 
family  heirloom,  in  the  shape  of  a  sword  set  with  diamonds. 
The  only  bankers  likely  to  offer  an  adequate  sum  on  the 
security  of  the  sword  were  to  be  found  in  London.  Conse- 
quently La  Tremoille,  \vith  his  sword  and  his  bad  angel, 
without  waiting  for  the  Emperor's  reply  to  his  request, 
set  out  to  drive  across  Europe. 

It  was  late  autumn  ;  the  weather  was  abominable,  and 
the  roads  worse  ;  moreover,  in  order  to  avoid  falling  in 
with  the  RepubHcan  army,  the  Duke  and  his  companion 


286  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

were  compelled  to  follow  circuitous  routes  and  by-ways, 
on  one  of  which  their  carriage  was  overturned.  In  the 
end,  however,  they  reached  Ostend  in  safety,  and  there 
embarked  for  London.  At  the  Court  of  St.  James's,  La 
Tremoille  received  a  hearty  welcome.  With  the  money 
raised  on  the  sword  he  was  able  to  bay  horses  and  set  up  a 
large  establishment.  The  Prince  of  Wales  carried  him  off 
to  Basingstoke  ;  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  with  whom  we 
found  him  consorting  at  Plombieres,  invited  him  to  hunt 
at  Woburn  Abbey.  Armand  meanwhile  was  left  in 
London  to  stake  what  remained  of  the  borrowed  capital 
at  rouge  et  noir. 

In  such  gay  society,  while  his  wife  was  in  the  Abbaye 
prison,  and  his  Sovereign  was  being  tried  for  his  life,  the 
Duke  passed  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1792 — 3. 

"  Our  amusements,"  he  writes,  "  were  hardly  decorous, 
for  with  the  Prince  of  Wales  the  order  of  the  day  was  to 
drink  without  ceasing,  so  that  when  bedtime  came  I  could 
not  stand  upon  my  legs." 

From  such  conviviality  in  the  country  La  Tremoille  was 
summoned  back  to  London  by  the  news  that  Count 
Armand's  infallible  tip  had  failed,  that  luck  was  turning 
against  him,  and  that  the  money  raised  on  the  sword  was 
vanishing  rapidly.  The  Duke  returned  to  London  to  find 
himself  once  again  reduced  to  poverty.  He  sold  up  his 
estabHshment,  which,  he  writes,  had  become  a  refuge  for 
French  adventurers  of  both  sexes,  "  a  veritable  den  of 
thieves,"  and  went  down  to  Bedford  to  join  his  friends, 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Piennes.  Thence  he  went  over 
to  Richmond  to  visit  his  wife. 

The  meeting  between  the  Duke  and  Duchess  can  hardly 
have  been  a  very  pleasant  one.  While  Madame  de 
Tarente  had  been  loyally  serving  her  King  and  Queen, 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  287 

enduring  imprisonment  and  risking  death  for  their  sakes, 
her  husband  had  been  absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure. 
Madame  de  Tarente  was  scandaHsed  by  his  foUies  ;  but 
while  reproaching  him  bitterly,  she  generously  placed 
her  fortune  at  his  disposal.  His  wife's  financial  help, 
however,  the  Prince  refused ;  "  she  needed  all  her 
resources  for  herself,"  he  writes. 

Soon  afterwards  came  the  news  of  the  execution  of 
Louis  XVL,  which  was  followed  by  England's  declaration 
of  war  against  the  French  Republic.  For  service  in  this 
war  several  new  cavalry  regiments  were  raised  ;  and  over 
one  of  them  La  Tremoille  would  have  received  the 
command,  had  it  not  been  for  what  the  Duke  himself 
describes  as  his  own  stupid  blunder.  It  happened  in  the 
following  manner.  As  he  was  passing  by  Mrs.  Fitz- 
herbert's  house  in  London,  the  Prince  of  Wales  came  to 
the  window  and  called  out  :  "  My  dear  Prince,  I  have 
\  some  good  news  for  you  ;  I  appoint  you  colonel  of  a 
regiment  of  light  cavalry  we  are  about  to  raise  ;  you  are 
to  enter  our  service.''  To  this  announcement  La  Tre- 
moille answered  :  "  I  am  truly  sensible  of  the  amiability 
of  your  Royal  Highness,  but,  having  taken  service  with 
Monseigneur,  le  Prince  de  Conde,  I  cannot  accept  your 
Highness '3  offer  without  his  permission."  No  sooner 
were  the  words  out  of  his  mouth  than  La  Tremoille 
realised  their  awkwardness  ;  for  the  Prince  turned  pale 
with  anger  and  said  :  "If  that  is  so,  then  consider  my 
proposal  as  if  it  had  never  been  made,  and  I  wish  you 
good  luck." 

From  that  day  all  relations  between  the  Duke  and  the 
Prince  of  Wales  ceased.  For  La  Tremoille's  character 
this  breach  with  his  royal  friend  was  by  no  means 
disastrous,  for  it  converted  him  from  a  mere  pleasure- 


288  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

seeking  man  of  fashion  into  an  energetic,  courageous 
soldier,  fighting  with  loyalty  and  devotion  in  his  Sovereign's 
cause. 

Immediately  after  his  quarrel  with  the  Prince  La 
Tremoille  left  England  for  the  Continent.  But,  although 
he  had  thus  thoughtlessly  represented  himself  as  engaged 
to  the  Prince  de  Conde,  he  knew  full  well  that  in  Conde's 
army  he  would  not  be  likely  to  find  employment.  For 
the  royalist  princes,  especially  the  Comte  d'Artois,  could 
not  forgive  him  for  forsaking  them  and  going  to  England 
after  the  campaign  of  1792. 

Nevertheless,  disembarking  at  Ostend,  the  Duke, 
accompanied  by  his  brother,  Prince  Louis,  proceeded  to 
join  Conde's  army  on  the  Rhine.  On  the  way  he  passed 
through  Brussels,  where  he  borrowed  money  from  his 
mother's  relatives  on  the  security  of  her  estate.  But  on 
his  arrival  at  Bingen,  then  the  headquarters  of  the  emigres, 
La  Tremoille  found  himself  regarded  as  a  deserter  because 
of  his  winter  spent  in  England. 

He,  therefore,  resolved  to  return  to  Vienna  and  investi- 
gate the  progress  made  by  his  demand  for  an  imperial 
fief  which  the  Emperor  had  referred  to  the  Aulic  Council. 
At  Vienna  he  found  that  the  Council,  before  granting  his 
request,  would  require  the  production  of  a  capital  sum 
which  far  exceeded  his  means. 

The  next  chapter  of  his  adventures  may  best  be  related 
in  the  Duke's  own  words. 

"  I  became  intimate,"  he  writes,  "  with  the  amiable 
Marquis  del  Gallo,  Neapolitan  ambassador  at  the  court  of 
Vienna,  who  offered  me  the  rank  of  colonel  aide-de-camp 
to  his  sovereign  with  a  salary  of  8,000  to  10,000  francs. 
I  accepted,  forgetting  that  I  was  thus  tacitly  renouncing 
my    family's   claim   to   the   kingdom   of   Naples.     The 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  289 

recognition  of  my  title,  Prince  of  Taranto/  was  refused 
and  I  was  treated  as  a  grandee  of  Spain.  True  I  was 
addressed  as  Excellency,  but  then  German  princelets  were 
called  your  Highness,  while  I  was  only  Signor  Principe 
like  the  grandson  of  any  fishmonger  rich  enough  to  buy 
the  title." 

Having  accepted  Gallo's  offer.  La  Tremoille  apparently 
went  to  Naples.  For  he  goes  on  to  relate  his  dealings 
with  the  famous  Englishman  who  was  at  that  time 
governing  the  Neapolitan  kingdom. 

"  In  my  first  interview  with  General  Acton,^  the 
favourite  minister  of  Queen  Caroline  and  more  powerful 
than  King  Ferdinand,"  he  writes,  "  I  realised  that  in 
order  to  please  him  I  must  become  the  chief  of  his  shirri, 
see  everything,  hear  everything,  then  report  everything. 
If  I  would  consent,  then  I  should  be  colonel  of  a 
Macedonian  (or  an  Albanian)  regiment  in  garrison  at 
Naples,  a  horde  of  scoundrels  always  hatching  revo- 
lutionary plots  which  had  to  be  discovered.  But  I  had 
no  wish  to  serve  as  chief  of  police  to  this  hard-featured, 
tyrannical-looking,  atrabilious  satrap.  After  dinner  I 
gave  him  to  understand  that  the  Marquis  del  Gallo  had 
spoken  to  me  of  the  rank  of  a  colonel  aide-de-camp  to  the 
King,  with  the  command  of  an  auxiliary  corps  in  Lom- 
bardy.  The  next  day  the  King  and  Queen  most 
graciously  received  me.  Two  days  later  I  had  my  com- 
mission and  set  out  for  Lombardy,  there  to  join  five 
cavalry  regiments,  commanded  by  Cuto.     This  old  general 

1  Henceforth  until  its  formal  recognition  by  Louis  XVIII.  in  1819, 
the  title  "  Prince  of  Taranto  "  seems  to  have  been  in  abeyance.  After 
Wagram,  Napoleon  created  General  Macdonald  Duke  of  Taranto. 

2  Sir  John  Acton  (1736 — 1811),  son  of  a  London  goldsmith  and  a 
French  lady  of  Besan9on,  where  Acton  was  born.  Having  entered  the 
Tuscan  navy,  Acton  so  distinguished  himself  in  that  service  that  he  was 
entrusted  with  the  organisation  of  the  Neapolitan  naval  forces.  He 
then  became  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Neapolitan  army  and  Prime 
Minister.  He  detested  the  French,  and  his  influence  over  Queen 
Caroline,  whose  lover  he  is  said  to  have  been,  was  disastrous  for  the 
kingdom  of  Naples. 

C.R.  U 


290  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

treated  me  with  the  coldest  and  most  casual  politeness. 
He  wrongly  regarded  me  as  General  Acton's  spy,  and 
seemed  determined  to  prove  me  as  useless  as  the  fifth 
wheel  of  a  cart.  He  gave  me  nothing  to  do  and  every  day 
when  I  asked  him  for  orders,  he  would  reply  :  '*  Nothing 
at  all ;  niente  a  fatto."  I  sat  at  his  table  with  his  two 
aides-de-camp  ;  but  it  was  far  from  good,  for  he  was  a 
veritable  skinflint." 

To  his  great  relief,  after  a  short  time  with  this  old 
curmudgeon,  La  Tremoille  was  ordered  to  join  Radetzky, 
chief  staff  officer  and  aide-de-camp  to  Beaulieu,  who  in 
1796  was  appointed  commander-in-chief  of  the  Austrian 
army  in  North  Italy.  In  Radetzky 's  service  there  was 
no  lack  of  employment.  La  Tremoille's  knowledge  of 
German  and  Italian  rendered  him  invaluable  as  corre- 
spondent of  the  army,  while  his  quickness  of  perception 
and  the  alertness  of  movement  he  had  cultivated  in  the 
hunting  field  enabled  him  to  do  first-rate  work  as  a  scout. 

In  that  memorable  retreat  of  Beaulieu's  forces  pursued 
by  Buonaparte  across  the  plain  of  Lombardy,  La  Tremoille 
commanded  in  the  rearguard.  He  was  present  at  the 
Battle  of  Lodi.  That  action,  though  it  lasted  but  twenty 
minutes,  involved,  writes  the  Duke,  the  most  terrible 
slaughter  he  had  ever  seen. 

During  the  following  day  and  two  nights  Radetzky  kept 
La  Tremoille  busy  reconnoitring.  For  the  whole  of  the 
day  after  Lodi,  from  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  until 
darkness  fell,  he  had  not  a  moment  in  which  to  take  food. 

"  On  the  second  night,"  he  writes,  '*  Radetzky  entrusted 
me  with  the  delicate  and  difficult  task  of  reconnoitring 
along  the  Adigio  and  of  distinguishing  between  our  friends 
and  our  foes.  .  .  .  The  troops  were  so  close  together  that 
in  the  darkness  it  was  difficult  to  tell  whether  the  fires  in 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  291 

the  bivouacs  belonged  to  the  French  or  to  the  Austiians. 
We  were  surrounded  by  them.  One  attracted  my  atten- 
tion. It  was  a  Httle  off  the  road  leading  up  to  the  Gam- 
barani  Bridge.  This  was  no  joke,  and  it  was  imperative 
to  discover  to  which  side  it  belonged.  I  had  only  taken 
my  orderly  with  me.  Him  I  left  to  look  after  my  horse. 
Then,  crawling  on  my  stomach,  noiselessly  through  the 
vines,  I  came  to  within  fifteen  feet  of  a  French  bivouac 
fire.  They  had  two  or  three  wounded  with  them.  They 
were  swearing  and  cursing  the  Austrians,  whom  they  said 
they  would  like  to  throw  into  the  Adigio.  And  in  truth 
they  were  on  the  point  of  doing  it.  Yet  we  were  still  in  a 
position  to  cross  the  river." 

Then  the  Duke  relates  how  this  passage  was  effected  in 
the  darkness,  how  the  wheels  of  carts  and  gun-carriages 
,were  bound  round  with  straw,  and  how,  thanks  to  German 
taciturnity,  a  column  of  9,000  to  10,000  men  with  all  their 
artillery  and  baggage  wagons  passed  300  paces  from  the 
enemy's  main  body  without  being  heard. 

La  Tremoille  was  uncertain  whether,  during  this 
campaign,  he  ever  actually  saw  Buonaparte.  There  was 
a  general  on  horseback  on  the  Bridge  at  Lodi  who  may 
have  been  he.  But  he  was  enveloped  in  smoke,  and  the 
Prince,  from  portraits  he  saw  afterwards,  thought  it  more 
likely  to  have  been  Augereau. 

The  crossing  of  the  Adigio  closed  the  campaign  of  1796. 
His  Neapolitan  cavalry,  under  the  command  of  a  brave 
Spaniard,  Marshal  Ruitz,  La  Tremoille  sent  into  winter 
quarters  in  the  Tyrol,  while  he  himself  visited  Lausanne, 
Turin  and  Venice.  Count  Radetzky,  highly  pleased  with 
his  services,  had  mentioned  him  in  the  most  flattering 
manner  in  the  reports  he  had  sent  to  Vienna. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  Duchesse  de  La 
Tremoille,  whom  her  husband  had  left  in  England,  was 

u  2 


292  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

invited  by  the  Czar  and  Czarina  to  become  lady-in-waiting 
at  the  court  of  St.  Petersburg. 

Paul  I.  and  his  wife,  Maria  Feodorovna,  before  their 
accession  to  the  throne  of  all  the  Russias,  had  visited 
Paris  incognito  as  the  Comte  and  Comtesse  du  Nord. 
And  there  at  the  house  of  her  grandmother,  the  Duchesse 
de  la  Valliere,  Madame  de  Tarente  had  made  their 
acquaintance.  She  now  accepted  their  invitation,  and  set 
sail  for  Cronstadt  on  board  a  Russian  frigate  which  they 
had  sent  for  her.  In  Russia,  suffering  much,  as  long  as  he 
Hved,  from  the  vagaries  of  the  eccentric  Czar  Paul,^  the 
Duchess  continued  to  reside  until  her  death  in  1814. 
That  her  husband  did  not  join  her  there  was  not  his  fault ; 
for  from  his  wife's  correspondence  ^  we  learn  that  he  more 
than  once  proposed  coming  to  St.  Petersburg.  But  after 
his  unfortunate  experience  in  England  no  doubt  the 
Duchess  dreaded  for  him  an  idle  life  of  pleasure  among  the 
French  emigres  who  had  thronged  to  the  Russian  capital. 
And  she  was  doubtless  right.  For  the  Duke's  voluptuous- 
ness and  frivolity  must  there  have  led  him  into  follies  as 
wild  as  those  he  had  committed  in  England  and  elsewhere. 
It  was  also  more  in  accordance  with  the  traditions  of 
his  house  that  he  should  remain  in  Italy  fighting  against 
the  enemies  of  his  King. 

Unhappily,  however,  through  the  campaign  of  1797,  as 
the  result  of  a  disagreement  between  Austria  and  Naples, 
there  was  nothing  for  La  Tremoille  to  do  but  vegetate  at 
Naples.  This  he  detested.  Naples  did  not  possess  the 
attractions  of  London  or  Vienna.  Moreover,  he  was 
surrounded  by  enemies,  for  Queen  Caroline,  Sir  John 

1  Fortunately  he  died  in  1801.  For  an  interesting  account  of  his 
reign,  see  K.  Waliszewski,  "  Le  Fils  de  la  Grande  Catherine  "  (191 2). 

2  Published  with  her  "  Souvenirs  "  by  Duke  Louis  Charles  de  La 
Tremoille. 


EMMANUELLE  DE  CHATILLON,  PRINCESSE  DE   TARENTE 
AND   DUCHESSE    DE    LA    TREMOILLE 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  293 

Acton  and  the  notorious  Lady  Hamilton,  who  was  then 
very  powerful  at  Naples,  all  disliked  the  French.  The 
Neapolitan  officers,  too,  were  jealous  of  this  French  Duke, 
and  accused  him  of  treachery  in  the  previous  campaign. 

The  King,  however,  remained  his  friend;  and  in  the 
following  year  La  Tremoille  received  a  command  in 
General  Mack's  army,  first  under  the  Prince  of  Hesse 
Philipstal,  whom  he  disliked  for  having  worsted  him  in 
love,  and  then  under  a  personal  friend,  the  Chevalier  de 
Saxe.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Rome  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  fighting  with  the  French.  At  Civita  Castellana, 
Saxe  received  a  bullet  in  the  stomach,  whereupon  his 
troops,  crying  "  the  general  is  dead,"  turned  and  fled  in 
disorder.  There  was  a  general  rout,  and  the  soldiers  fired 
upon  their  officers  when  they  attempted  to  rally  them. 

In  the  place  of  Saxe,  who  was  unable  to  travel,  La 
Tremoille  was  summoned  to  Rome  to  report  on  this 
disaster  to  Acton  and  King  Ferdinand.  The  Duke  him- 
self was  suffering  from  an  attack  of  fever  and  was  almost 
delirious.  Although  the  King  and  his  minister  received 
him  kindly,  La  Tremoille  a  few  days  later  read  in  the 
newspaper  that  he  was  accused  of  treason  and  held 
responsible  for  the  rout  at  Civita  Castellana.  Considering 
the  number  of  enemies  he  seems  to  have  made  at  the 
Neapolitan  court  no  one  can  be  astonished  at  this  charge 
being  brought  against  him.  No  accusation  could  have 
been  more  serious.  On  a  similar  charge  Great  Britain 
only  a  few  decades  earlier  had  tried  and  condemned  to 
death  a  distinguished  admiral.  From  so  uncivilised  a 
power  as  Naples  then  was  La  Tremoille  could  expect  no 
better  treatment. 

The  circulation  of  so  terrible  a  report  filled  the  Duke's 
relatives    with    horror.     His    only    surviving    brother, 


294  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Prince  Louis  de  La  Tremoille,  was  then  living  with 
Countess  Bentinck  at  Hamburg.  And  in  a  letter  to  her 
grand-daughter  in  London  the  Countess  writes  ^ : 

"  We  have  had  a  very  unpleasant  time  here  the  last 
three  or  four  weeks.  .  .  .  The  Italian  newspapers,  copied 
by  those  of  the  Empire,  told  us  cruel,  humiliating  news  of 
the  Due  de  La  Tremoille,  Prince  de  Tarente  .  .  .  whose 
brother.  Prince  Louis  de  La  Tremoille,  was,  and  still  is, 
staying  with  me.  The  Duke  is  a  general  in  the  King  of 
Naples'  service,  and  was  commanding  the  advance  guard 
at  the  Battle  of  Calvi.^  The  papers  said  that  the  chief 
cause  of  the  loss  of  this  decisive  battle  was  the  treachery 
and  cowardice  of  the  Duke.  You  can  imagine  that  this 
was  enough  to  strike  us  to  the  soul  with  horror.  Two 
brothers  ^  have  already  died  like  heroes  in  God's  cause  and 
the  King's,  and  the  one  who  is  here  has  sacrificed  himself 
for  the  last  seven  or  eight  years,  and  has  given  up  such 
small  means  as  were  left  him,  has  lost  his  health  and  has 
risked  his  life  at  least  twenty  times.  He  was  absolutely 
petrified  with  horror.  In  fact,  I  heard  he  would  not  be 
able  to  survive  the  frightful  idea  of  seeing  the  head  of  his 
house  covered  with  shame." 

Later  in  this  same  letter,  the  Countess  relates  how  the 
cloud  of  their  sorrow  lifted  in  an  unexpected  manner. 

"  In  spite  of  the  enormous  difficulty,"  she  continued, 
*'  which  the  court  of  Vienna  itself  experiences  in  obtaining 
news  from  those  Italian  places,  we  were  so  fortunate  as  to 
receive  two  letters  (one  from  a  general  officer  of  first  rank 
and  in  the  same  service)  which  not  only  completely  efface 

1  On  February  19th,  1799.  The  original  letter  is  in  the  possession  of 
Mr.  Aldenburg  Bentinck  at  Indio,  in  Devonshire.  It  is  quoted  by 
Mrs.  Aubrey  Le  Blond  in  her  "  Life  of  Sophie,  Countess  Bentinck," 
II.,  210 — 211. 

2  Presumably  the  same  as  Civita  Castellana. 

^  Antoine  Philippe,  Prince  de  Talmond,  condemned  to  death  by  the 
revolutionary  court-martial  and  executed.  Charles  Auguste,  Dean  of 
Strasbourg,  guillotined  at  Paris. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  295 

that  black  calumny,  but  tell  us  that,  far  from  being  want- 
ing in  courage  and  fidelity  to  his  sovereign  and  benefactor, 
the  Duke  de  La  Tremoille  in  resisting  those  traitors  who 
wished  to  give  themselves  up  to  the  French  did  everything 
that  the  greatest  zeal  and  valour  could  inspire,  and  nearly 
fell  a  victim  himself,  but  escaped  as  by  a  miracle  from  the 
rage  of  those  regiments  who  had  been  corrupted  and 
seduced  by  the  French.  Neither  he  nor  his  colleague,  the 
brave  ChevaHer  de  Saxe,  could  avoid  their  malicious  and 
infernal  slanders,  the  falsehood  of  which  is  now  publicly 
proclaimed,  and  the  King,  his  master,  is  informed  of  and 
touched  by  his  fidelity,  his  innocence  and  his  misfortune. 
We  were  transported  with  joy  at  the  news,  which  gave  new 
life  to  our  amiable  young  Prince,  who  has  made  himself 
loved  and  esteemed  by  everyone  and  whose  state  was 
pitiable.  I  entreat  you  to  tell  all  this  to  the  Duke  of 
Portland  ;  the  Prince  also  urgently  desires  it,  considering 
his  esteem  one  of  the  greatest  treasures  in  the  world  and 
knowing  his  brother's  honour  safe  in  the  eyes  of  the 
majority  when  the  Duke  himself  pronounces  it  to  be  above 
reproach." 

Unhappily,  this  rejoicing  was  premature.  The  evil 
reports  continued  ;  and  five  months  after  she  wrote  this 
letter,  the  Countess  enters  in  her  diary  :  "  The  Prince  de 
La  Tremoille  left  to-day,  having  given  me  terrible  news 
last  night  at  midnight."  ^ 

The  "  terrible  news  "  to  which  the  Countess  referred 
concerned  doubtless  the  doings  of  the  Duke  since  the  first 
appearance  of  that  fatal  slander.  In  a  furious  letter  to 
Acton,  in  which  he  wrote  that  to  be  a  private  soldier  in 
La  Vendee  was  better  than  being  general  under  such  a 
minister,  he  resigned  his  commission.  Then,  dismissing 
his  aide-de-camp  and  his  servants,  accompanied  only  by 
one  Hungarian  soldier,  he  left  Rome,  and  by  way  of 

^  On  July  4th,  1799.     See  Mrs.  Aubrey  de  Blond,  op.  cit.  II.,  233. 


296  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Orbit ello  went  to  Florence.  There  his  cousin,  the  Marquise 
de  GroUier,  and  an  old  friend,  the  Bailli  de  Crussol,  a 
former  captain  under  the  Comte  d'Artois,  afraid  to  receive 
one  labouring  under  so  terrible  an  accusation,  sent  him  to 
the  Vanini  inn,  where  he  was  betrayed  into  the  hands  of 
the  Neapolitan  Minister,  who  had  him  arrested. 

After  a  brief  confinement  in  the  citadel  of  Leghorn, 
La  Tremoille  was  taken  to  Palermo,  whither  the 
Neapolitan  court  had  fled  from  the  Revolution  in  Naples. 
In  Sicily,  writes  the  Duke  in  his  Souvenirs,  the  King  and 
Queen  were  inclined  to  be  indulgent  and  to  recommend 
him  to  the  court  of  Denmark.  But  the  malice  of  the 
"  atrabilious  satrap  "  still  pursued  him.  The  only  con- 
dition on  which  Acton  would  liberate  him  was  that  he 
should  make  good  his  bravado  and  become  a  soldier  in 
La  Vendee.  With  this  object  the  Duke  was  permitted  to 
embark  at  Trieste,  from  which  port  he  travelled  to 
Hamburg,  en  route  for  England,  whence  he  was  to  cross  the 
Channel  into  Normandy.  At  Hamburg  La  Tremoille  met 
his  brother  Louis,  who  arranged  his  passage  to  England  in 
company  with  General  Frotte,  who  was  likewise  on  his  way 
to  Normandy.  Prince  Louis,  although  convinced  of  his 
brother's  innocence,  had  no  belief  in  his  judgment.  He 
was  always  dreading  that  the  Duke  would  perpetrate 
some  new  folly.  To  the  life  his  eldest  brother  had 
previously  led  in  England  Louis  referred  as  to  a  time  when 
he  "  was  completely  crazy,  with  his  diamonds,  and  his 
swords  and  his  fatal  dreams,  when  it  was  a  pity  for  his 
reputation  and  his  own  good  that  England  had  no  lettres 
de  cachet  or  petites  maisons." 

Now  at  length  the  Duke's  misfortunes  seem  to  have 
sobered  him.  And  the  rest  of  his  life  was  comparatively 
uneventful.     After    two    months'   guerilla    warfare    in 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  297 

Normandy,  during  which  his  only  adventure  was  to 
receive  several  musket  shots  in  his  clothes,  he  left  the 
west  when  Buonaparte  was  attempting  its  pacification  and 
went  to  Paris.  There  for  two  years  he  remained  hiding  in 
the  house  of  a  Swiss  friend.  Then,  in  1803,  as  major- 
general  he  entered  the  service  of  the  Grand  Duke  of 
Baden. 

Among  Prince  Louis*  correspondence  has  been  dis- 
covered an  anonymous  document,  but  apparently  written 
by  a  Neapohtan  officer,  confessing  that  the  Duke  had 
been  treated  with  gross  injustice.  "  We  annoyed  him  in 
every  possible  way,"  it  runs,  "  because  we  were  shocked 
to  see  a  foreigner  colonel  of  a  regiment  in  which  the  first 
families  in  the  kingdom  in  vain  solicited  a  sub- 
lieutenancy."  Then  testifying  to  the  Duke's  charm  of 
manner,  the  writer  continues  :  "  But  he  vanquished  us 
by  his  personality.  He  proved  to  us  that  he  knew  more 
than  we  did,  and  we  would  now  always  gladly  serve  under 
his  orders." 

Louis  de  La  Tremoille,  hoping  that  the  Countess  would 
make  him  her  heir,  continued  at  Hamburg  until  her  death 
in  1 80 1.  But,  although  for  years  he  had  practically  ruled 
her  household,  he  had  been  unable  to  ingratiate  himself 
sufficiently  for  her  to  bequeath  him  her  property.  "  Her 
arrogance  was  inconceivable,  her  disposition  of  iron,  and 
her  heart  of  stone,"  wrote  the  Duke,  and  at  her  death  his 
brother  found  himself  homeless  and  with  "  nothing  more 
than  the  emigrant's  little  bundle,"  with  which  he  had 
arrived.  Then  he  went  to  Paris  in  search  of  a  rich  wife, 
and  in  1803  married  Genevieve  Adelaide,  Comtesse  de 
Langeron. 

There  for  a  time  we  must  leave  him  in  order  to  trace 
the  more  tragic  career  of  his  twin  brothers,  the  Prince  de 


298  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

Talmond  and  the  Abbe  de  La  Tremoille.  The  Prince  we 
left  in  England,  whither  in  the  autumn  of  1792  he  had 
conducted  his  sister-in-law,  the  Princesse  de  Tarente,  after 
her  miraculous  escape  from  the  September  massacres. 
After  establishing  Madame  de  Tarente  at  Richmond,  Tal- 
mond probably  spent  the  winter  in  this  country ;  for,  while 
the  royalist  armies  were  in  winter  quarters,  he  could  best 
serve  their  cause  by  endeavouring  to  procure  from  our 
government  help  for  the  royalist  rising  in  Western  France. 

Moreover,  during  his  visit  to  England  in  the  spring, 
Talmond's  possession  of  a  wife  and  son  in  France  had  not 
prevented  him  from  following  his  eldest  brother's  example 
and  falling  a  victim  to  the  charms  of  an  English  gentle- 
woman. Her  name  is  usually  not  mentioned.  One 
authority  ^  only  refers  to  Talmond's  mysterious  mistress 
as  "  Lady  Brighton." 

It  was  doubtless  in  January,  1793,  that  news  of  his 
King's  execution  tore  the  Prince  from  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure  to  fight  for  the  cause  in  which  he  was  to  perish. 
The  parting  of  the  lovers  was  sad  and  solemn.  In  the  true 
romantic  manner  they  broke  a  ring  in  two  halves,  and,  each 
taking  one,  exchanged  a  promise  that  whenever  either 
sent  the  other  a  fragment  of  this  ring  the  receiver  should 
take  it  as  a  peremptory  summons  to  the  sender's  presence. 

Then  Talmond,  quitting  our  shores  for  ever,  passed 
secretly  over  to  France  and  in  disguise  appeared  on  his 
hereditary  dominions  in  Maine. 

But  to  effectively  disguise  himself  was  difficult  for  this 
handsome,  striking,  well-built  Prince  of  twenty -five.  He 
was  soon  recognised  and  imprisoned  at  Angers.  His 
captors  intended  to  take  him  to  Paris  for  trial.     But  their 

1  Cretineau  Joly,  "  Histoire  desG^n^raux  et  Chefs  Vendeens"  (1838), 
225,  who  describes  Lady  Brighton  as  Talmond's  fiancee. 


ANTOINE    PHILIPPE    PRINCE   DE   TALMOND 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  299 

delay  in  the  accomplishment  of  this  design  permitted  the 
Abbe  de  La  Tremoille,  who  was  in  the  capital,  to  intercede 
with  the  Convention  on  his  twin  brother's  behalf.  All 
that  the  Abbe  could  obtain,  however,  was  a  promise  of  the 
Prince's  liberation  in  exchange  for  an  undertaking  to  leave 
Western  France.  Of  such  a  desertion  Talmond  was 
incapable.  Consequently  he  remained  a  prisoner.  And 
orders  were  given  for  his  conveyance  from  Angers  to 
Laval.  On  the  road,  by  bribing  his  guards,  Talmond 
contrived  to  escape  and  to  make  his  way  into  La  Vendee, 
to  Chatillon,  where  a  royalist  council  was  then  sitting. 

The  commander  of  the  royalist  forces.  La  Rouerie,  had 
recently  died  ;  and  possibly  Talmond  may  have  hoped 
to  succeed  him.  But,  although  his  good  looks  and  his 
brave,  generous  and  genial  disposition  won  him  popu- 
larity with  the  rank  and  file,  the  nobles  commanding  in 
the  royalist  army  regarded  him  with  jealousy  and  sus- 
picion. These  gentlemen,  many  of  them,  had  been  among 
the  1,700  vassals  who  during  Vancien  regime  had  owed 
allegiance  to  the  Dukes  of  La  Tremoille.  And  now  they 
hesitated  to  take  any  step  which  might  tend  to  restore 
the  dominance  of  that  family  in  Western  France.  It  was 
impossible,  however,  to  avoid  giving  Talmond  some  com- 
mand. And  the  son  of  an  Angevin  cobbler  who  had  just 
been  appointed  general  of  cavalry  resigned  in  favour  of 
the  Prince,  in  whose  regiment  he  consented  to  serve  as  a 
lieutenant. 

Henceforth,  whenever  the  hereditary  gout  permitted 
him  to  go  into  action,  Talmond  distinguished  himself  by 
dashing  courage  and  unflinching  fortitude.  More  than 
once  his  invincible  ardour  converted  what  would  have 
been  a  disastrous  defeat  into  a  glorious  victory. 

Yet  all  the  heroism  of  the  royahst  troops  was  powerless 


300  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

against  the  able  commanders  and  the  revolutionary  zeal 
of  the  Sans-culottes.  Defeat  followed  defeat,  while  La 
Vendee  was  wasted  with  fire  and  sword,  and  the  houses  of 
the  loyal  peasants  burnt  to  ashes.  Their  occupants, 
homeless  wanderers,  whom  no  hardships  could  alienate 
from  their  devotion  to  the  Crown,  with  their  old  men, 
their  women  and  their  children,  attached  themselves  to 
the  army  for  protection  and  followed  it  in  its  march. 

In  a  once  fertile  country  transformed  by  hostile  armies 
into  a  veritable  desert,  to  feed  this  swelling  multitude 
became  increasingly  difficult.  And  certain  of  the  generals, 
among  whom  Talmond  was  one,  proposed  that  the  army 
with  its  throng  of  dependants  should  cross  the  Loire,  into 
the  less  wasted  province  of  Maine,  where  it  was  hoped  a 
more  effectual  resistance  might  be  organised. 

On  this  question  there  was  a  heated  debate  in  the  coun- 
cil of  war.  Talmond,  impetuous,  sanguine  and  totally 
lacking  in  sound  judgment,  eagerly  supported  the  pro- 
posal to  cross  into  Maine,  where  in  his  ancestral  dominions 
of  Laval  he  expected  to  do  great  things  for  the  royal  cause. 
The  general  in  chief,  the  Comte  de  La  Rochejaquelein,^  on 
the  other  hand,  strongly  opposed  this  project.  Not  only  did 
it  involve  the  abandonment  of  La  Vendee  to  the  Revolu- 
tionaries, but  it  entailed  the  enormously  difficult  enterprise 
of  conveying  across  a  broad  river  a  whole  army  encumbered 
by  hundreds  of  wounded,  by  thousands  of  old  men,  women 
and  children,  and  by  cart-loads  of  such  household  goods 
as  they  had  succeeded  in  rescuing  from  the  hands  of  the 
spoiler.  In  the  council  of  war,  however.  La  Roche- 
jaquelein  was  outvoted.     The  passage  was  resolved  upon, 

1  Two  La  Rochejaquelein  brothers  distinguished  themselves  in  the 
La  Vendee  wars :  the  Comte  Henri,  who,  after  Lescure's  death,  was 
elected  Commander-in-chief,  and  the  Marquis  Louis,  who  held  a 
subordinate  command. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  301 

and  to  Talmond  was  confided  the  task  of  procuring  means 
of  transport. 

To  provide  sufficient  boats  for  so  vast  a  multitude  was 
naturally  impossible.  Utter  confusion  reigned,  panic  pre- 
vailed, and  the  crossing  of  the  river  was  a  veritable  sauve 
qui  petit.  Madame  de  La  Rochejaquelein,  who,  with  her 
dying  husband,  the  wounded  M.  de  Lescure,^  was  following 
the  army,  having  watched  the  crossing  from  a  hill  near  the 
river,  has  thus  graphically  described  it  in  her  Memoirs  ^ : 

"  The  heights  of  vSt.  Florent  form  a  kind  of  semi-circle, 
from  the  foot  of  which  a  great  level  plain  stretches  down 
to  the  Loire,  which  is  very  wide  at  this  place.  Eighty 
thousand  people  crowded  into  this  valley  :  soldiers, 
women,  children,  old  men  and  wounded,  all  pell-mell, 
fleeing  from  fire  and  murder.  Behind  them  they  could  see 
the  smoke  of  their  villages  which  the  Republicans  were 
burning.  Nothing  was  to  be  heard  save  groans,  cries  and 
sobs.  In  this  confused  mass  everyone  was  trying  to  find 
his  relatives,  his  friends,  his  defenders.  An  unknown 
destiny  awaited  these  people  on  the  opposite  bank. 
Nevertheless  they  were  as  eager  to  reach  it  as  if  they  were 
certain  of  finding  there  the  end  of  all  their  sorrows.  A 
score  of  old  leaky  boats  were  incessantly  crossing  the  river 
bearing  crowds  of  fugitives  to  the  opposite  bank.  Others 
tried  to  cross  on  horseback,  while  those  left  behind 
stretched  out  their  arms  to  their  comrades  already  landed, 
entreating  them  to  come  to  their  rescue.  Far  away  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river  one  could  dimly  discern  and  faintly 
hear  another  great  multitude.  A  little  island  in  the 
middle  was  covered  with  people.  Many  of  us  compared 
all  this  disorder  and  despair,  this  terrible  uncertainty  as 
to  the  future,  this  surging  crowd,  this  valley  with  a  river 
to  cross,  to  the  pictures  of  the  terrible  Day  of  Judgment." 

1  She  married  Louis  Marquis  de  La  Rochejaquelein  after  the  death 
of  Lescure,  which  took  place  soon  after  the  crossing  of  the  Loire. 

2  Ed.  1822,  248. 


302  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

In  a  boat,  rowed  by  a  poor  priest  who  was  worn  out 
with  eight  hours  at  the  oar,  Madame  de  La  Roche jaquelein 
and  her  friends  were  taken  across.  When  they  landed, 
there  on  the  bank,  seated  on  the  grass,  were  crowds  of 
Vendeans  waiting  for  their  friends  to  come  over. 

That  the  whole  army  with  its  vast  throng  of  followers 
was  eventually  conveyed  over  the  river  speaks  well  for  the 
Prince  de  Talmond's  organisation.  Once  on  the  opposite 
bank,  again  at  Talmond's  suggestion,  the  Vendeans 
marched  towards  Laval.  The  town  was  held  by  the 
Republicans.  But  the  Prince  was  confident  of  being  able 
to  capture  it  and  to  raise  the  country. 

This  march  of  the  Vendean  host  was  a  marvellous 
sight.  The  vanguard  of  soldiers  with  a  few  cannon  was 
followed  by  a  disorderly  crowd,  women  carrying  their 
infants,  old  men  supported  by  their  sons,  wounded  barely 
able  to  drag  themselves  along,  and  with  them  artillery  and 
carts  and  baggage  wagons  all  mingled  together  and  block- 
ing the  road  so  that  sometimes  it  was  impossible  to 
advance.  After  halting  for  a  few  hours  at  Chateau 
Gonthier,  the  Vendeans  approached  Laval,  where  the  first 
of  Talmond's  anticipations  was  fulfilled,  for  the  15,000 
Republican  defenders  of  the  town  fled  before  the  royalist 
advance.  But  in  the  second  of  his  calculations  the  Prince 
was  disappointed  :  the  surrounding  country  did  not,  as 
he  had  expected,  take  up  arms  for  the  royal  cause.  Only 
a  few  thousand  peasants  came  in,  young  men  from  remote 
Breton  villages,  looking  like  savages  with  their  long  hair 
and  goat-skin  coats,  as,  waving  sticks  from  which  floated 
white  handkerchiefs,  they  entered  the  town  crying  vive 
le  roi ! 

During  the  nine  days  that  the  Vendeans  stayed  at  Laval 
more    than    one    Republican    attack    was    successfully 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  303 

repulsed  ;  and  in  these  actions,  which  inflicted  great  loss 
on  the  enemy,  Talmond  was  one  of  those  who  most 
brilliantly  distinguished  himself. 

Meanwhile,  however,  serious  dissensions  had  broken  out 
among  the  generals  ;  the  royalist  commanders  held  con- 
flicting opinions  as  to  their  next  move.  Some  were  for 
returning  across  the  Loire,  others  for  attacking  Nantes. 
Talmond,  feeling  sure  of  Brittany,  proposed  the  wildly 
impracticable  project  of  a  march  on  Paris.  This  sugges- 
tion was  wisely  combatted  by  M.  de  La  Roche jaquelein, 
who  urged  that  these  western  peasants  would  never  be 
persuaded  to  go  so  far  from  home,  and  that  with  winter 
approaching — it  was  then  the  beginning  of  November — 
the  march  across  France  of  so  heterogeneous  a  multitude 
would  inevitably  be  attended  with  disaster. 

Eventually,  when  on  November  2nd,  the  Vendeans  left 
Laval,  the  next  object  of  their  attack  was  uncertain. 
They  marched,  however,  in  a  north-westerly  direction  and 
made  their  first  important  halt  at  Fougeres,  that  Breton 
town  which  three  centuries  earlier  the  Great  Louis  de  La 
Tremoille  had  captured  from  turbulent  nobles  in  rebellion 
against  the  King.^ 

At  Fougeres  the  royalist  generals  came  to  an  under- 
standing. Ever  since  the  winter  of  1792,  when  the  nobles 
of  the  west  had  first  formed  a  league  for  the  support  of  the 
monarchy,  they  had  been  imploring  help  from  England. 
It  was  to  enforce  this  demand  that  in  the  following  spring 
the  Prince  de  Talmond  had  first  visited  England.  Nothing 
very  definite  had  been  promised,  but  the  French  royalists 
lived  in  hope  ;  and  now  it  was  resolved  to  lead  the 
Vendeans  down  to  the  sea  shore,  there  to  capture  some 
port  which  might  serve  as  a  basis  of  communication  with 

*  See  ante,  60. 


304  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

England,  and  as  a  dwelling-place  for  those  thousands  of 
women  and  children  who  encumbered  the  army.  The 
port  decided  upon  was  Granville,  on  the  Breton  coast,  not 
far  from  St.  Malo. 

By  way  of  Dol  and  Avranches  the  Vendeans  proceeded. 
At  Avranches  all  the  non-combatants  were  left  behind, 
while  the  army,  some  30,000  strong,  continued  to  Gran- 
ville. There,  although  at  first  the  enthusiasm  and  valour 
of  the  besiegers  won  the  day  and  carried  the  suburbs, 
finding  that  no  adequate  preparations  had  been  made  for 
an  attack,  the  Vendeans  were  discouraged.  The  cannon 
on  the  ramparts  drove  them  back,  and  although  they 
continued  before  the  town  for  thirty-six  hours,  they  were 
ultimately  forced  to  retreat  and  return  to  Avranches. 

On  the  night  before  the  attack  on  Granville  a  romantic 
incident  had  happened  to  the  Prince  de  Talmond.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  on  the  eve  of  his  final  departure  from 
England,  the  Prince  had  broken  a  ring  and  exchanged  a 
solemn  promise  with  a  mysterious  lady.  On  this  night, 
there  was  brought  to  him  at  Avranches  in  a  sealed  packet, 
presented  by  two  English  sailors,  the  lady's  half  of  the 
ring  with  a  reminder  of  his  promise  and  an  announcement 
that  an  English  ship  lay  off  the  Breton  coast  ready  to 
convey  the  Prince  to  England.  Talmond  was  on  the  horns 
of  a  dilemma.  To  at  once  keep  faith  with  his  lady  and  his 
King  was  impossible,  to  one  or  the  other  he  must  break 
his  word  :  he  chose  to  prove  false  to  the  lady  ;  and  in 
prophetic  words  he  wrote  to  her  :  *'  I  have  promised  to 
defend  the  cause  in  which  I  have  drawn  my  sword.  I 
believe  it  to  be  right.  To  forsake  my  comrades-in-arms 
would  be  to  break  my  word.  Till  death  I  shall  share  their 
labours  and  their  dangers."  While  refusing  to  himself 
embark  on  the  English  vessel,  Talmond  determined  to 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  305 

send  on  board  three  ladies  who  were  with  the  army  and 
who  were  anxious  to  reach  Jersey.  Two  of  them,  Madame 
de  Cuissard  and  Madame  de  Fay,  were  wives  of  emigrants, 
but  it  was  for  the  safety  of  the  third,  Mdlle.  Sidonie^ 
Madame  de  Fay's  fascinating  sister-in-law,  that  Talmond 
was  most  concerned.  Indeed,  we  suspect  that  Mdlle. 
Sidonie's  attractions,  in  obscuring  those  of  her  English 
predecessor,  had  considerably  facilitated  the  Prince's 
choice  between  loyalty  to  his  King  and  faithfulness  to  his 
mistress. 

Before  the  Prince  could  carry  out  his  project,  however, 
the  attack  on  Granville  intervened,  and  it  was  not  until 
the  night  after  Granville  that  Talmond  and  his  fair  friends 
could  set  out  for  the  coast.  Shortly  before  daybreak,  they 
left  Avranches  accompanied  by  another  officer,  ten  horse- 
men and  a  priest.  But  on  arriving  at  the  seaside  they 
found  that,  owing  to  the  lowness  of  the  tide,  the  English 
ship  could  not  put  into  shore,  and  that  in  order  to  embark 
it  would  be  necessary  for  the  ladies  to  ride  some  distance 
on  horseback  through  the  water. 

This  they  were  afraid  to  do  ;  and,  hearing  of  the 
approach  of  Republican  soldiers  the  party  turned  round 
forthwith  and  rode  back  to  Avranches,  having  been 
absent  no  longer  than  three  hours. -^ 

But,  during  that  short  time,  much  had  happened.  An 
ex-gamekeeper,  Stofflet,  who  commanded  the  Angevin 
and  Poitevin  part  of  the  army,  informed  of  Talmond's 
mysterious  disappearance,  rushed  to  the  conclusion  that 

1  Mme  de  La  Rochejaquelein's  "  Memoires,"  ed.  cit.,  301 — 303  ; 
Cr6tineau  Joly,  "  Histoire  des  G6n6raux  et  Chefs  Vendeens  "  (1838), 
225 — 6  ;  the  latter  royalist,  Catholic  and  inclined  to  favour  Talmond. 
Other  authorities  (see  Chassin,  "  La  Vendue  Patriote,"  III.,  311,  and 
note)  state  that  Talmond  intended  to  desert  the  army,  that  he  offered 
a  fisherman  100  louis-d'or  and  two  of  his  best  horses  to  carry  him  to 
Jersey,  and  that  his  brother  officer,  Beauvolliers,  took  with  him  the 
royalist  war-chest. 

C.R.  X 


3o6  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

he  had  deserted  ;  immediately  he  despatched  a  body  of 
troops  to  bring  him  back,  and  seized  the  horses  and  all  the 
other  possessions  which  the  Prince  had  left  at  Avranches. 
When  Talmond  returned,  without  even  having  met  the 
soldiers  sent  in  his  pursuit,  he  was  naturally  furious  to 
find  that  so  slanderous  an  interpretation  had  been  put 
upon  his  absence.  Nevertheless  he  magnanimously 
forgave  Stofflet,  realising,  doubtless,  that  it  was  defeat 
and  disappointment  that  had  rendered  the  general  so 
absurdly  suspicious. 

Indeed  the  desperate  straits  to  which  their  failure  to 
take  Granville  had  reduced  the  royalist  leaders  were 
enough  to  account  for  any  error  in  judgment.  The 
generals  were  at  their  wit's  end  to  know  what  to  do  with 
these  thousands  of  poor  ruined  folk  whom  they  had  led 
far  from  their  native  province,  in  the  hope  of  finding  some 
new  home  north  of  the  Loire.  The  Vendeans  themselves 
were  clamouring  to  be  conducted  back  across  the  river  ; 
and  the  generals,  at  the  end  of  their  own  resources, 
resolved  to  accede  to  this  demand. 

During  the  month  which  elapsed  between  the  defeat  of 
Granville  on  November  14th,  and  the  arrival  of  the 
Vendeans  at  the  Loire  on  December  15th,  the  two  principal 
events  were  the  battles  of  Dol  and  Le  Mans,  in  both  of 
which  Talmond  played  a  prominent  part. 

Their  sorrowful  retreat  southwards  the  Vendeans  sus- 
pended for  a  few  days  in  order  to  rest  in  the  little  town  of 
Dol.  There  at  midnight  they  were  attacked  by  a  formid- 
able republican  force  and  at  first  utterly  routed.  As 
day  dawned,  however,  the  Prince  de  Talmond  was  able 
to  turn  what  threatened  to  be  a  crushing  defeat  into  a  com- 
plete victory.  All  through  those  hours  of  desperate  fight- 
ing in  the  darkness,  through  the  panic  and  confusion  in 


TO  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  307 

the  narrow  streets  of  Dol,  away  to  the  right  of  their  main 
body  the  Vendeans  had  heard  continuous  firing.  This 
proceeded  from  a  cannon  which  the  Prince  de  Talmond 
was  discharging.  The  gunners  having  abandoned  it,  the 
Prince  and  two  brother  officers  themselves  served  it 
steadily  all  through  the  night.  Luckily  the  morning  mist 
which  came  up  at  daybreak  enabled  Talmond  to  deceive 
the  enemy  as  to  the  strength  of  his  forces.  In  reality,  he 
had  no  more  than  400  men ;  but,  inspired  by  their 
leader's  valour,  these  400  made  such  gallant  stand  that 
their  fleeing  comrades,  inspired  by  their  resistance,  rallied  ; 
and  through  Talmond's  courage  the  tide  of  battle  turned. 

"  This  battle  did  great  credit  to  M.  de  Talmond. 
M.  de  La  Rochejaquelein  and  all  the  army  delighted  to 
assure  Talmond  repeatedly  that  we  owed  him  our  salva- 
tion,'* writes  Madame  de  La  Rochejaquelein  in  her 
Memoirs,  and  she  was  no  friend  to  the  Prince.-^ 

But  at  Le  Mans,  Talmond's  heroism,  though  again 
signally  displayed,  was  powerless  to  avert  the  Vendean 
defeat  before  the  walls  of  that  town. 

Then  followed  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  recross  the 
Loire,  and  the  separation  of  the  commander-in-chief  from 
his  army.  La  Rochejaquelein,  having  crossed  to  the 
southern  bank  in  order  to  take  possession  of  some  boats, 
was  attacked  by  the  Sans-Culottes,  and  compelled  to  take 
refuge  in  the  woods. 

After  this  disaster  the  Vendean  forces  began  to  break 
up.  Those  who  were  able  returned  singly  or  in  groups  to 
their  homes  across  the  river.  Of  the  troops  that  remained 
together,  after  the  loss  of  La  Rochejaquelein,  it  was 
necessary  to  elect  a  commander.     The  Prince  de  Talmond 

^  P.  317. 

X  2 


3o8  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

expected  to  be  chosen.  And  when  he  found  himself  passed 
over  for  a  mere  country  gentleman,  he  resolved  to  leave 
the  Vendean  army  in  order  to  raise  a  force  of  his  own. 

Despite  past  disappointments,  his  hopes  still  centred 
in  Laval.  And  he  was  making  his  way  thither,  when  he 
fell  in  with  a  party  of  Republicans,  who  took  him  prisoner. 
There  was  nothing  to  indicate  the  prisoner's  rank,  and  the 
Prince  would  probably  have  been  liberated  had  not  the 
daughter  of  an  innkeeper,  whom  Talmond  had  assisted 
during  the  crossing  of  the  Loire,  recognised  him,  and  cried, 
**  Why,  it  is  the  Prince  de  Talmond  !  " 

Taken  before  the  Republican  general,  Beaufort,  the 
Prince  proudly  acknowledged  his  identity.  "  Yes,"  he 
said,  "  I  am  the  Prince  de  Talmond.  Sixty-eight  battles 
in  six  months  fought  against  the  Republic  have  made  me 
familiar  with  death.  A  La  Tremoille,  son  of  the  lords  of 
Laval  and  Vitre,  myself  a  Prince,  I  was  bound  to  serve 
my  King.  By  knowing  how  to  die,  I  shall  prove  that  I 
was  worthy  to  defend  the  throne." 

The  Sans-Ctiloites  were  highly  elated  by  their  capture 
of  this  "  sovereign  of  Maine  and  Normandy,"  as  they 
described  Talmond,  this  "  Capet  of  the  brigands,  worthy 
to  figure  on  the  same  stage  as  his  dead  confrere." 

Pending  the  decision  as  to  the  place  of  his  trial  and 
execution,  the  Prince  was  imprisoned  at  Rennes.  The 
winter  dampness  and  cold  of  his  Breton  prison,  intensify- 
ing the  twinges  of  hereditary  gout,  reduced  this  brave 
soldier,  who  had  never  flinched  before  danger  in  the  field 
or  hardship  on  the  march,  to  appeal  to  the  pity  of  his 
captors.  To  the  Republican  general,  Rossignol,  Talmond 
wrote  from  Rennes  the  follo\ving  pathetic,  but  dignified, 
letter  ^ :    "  Citizen  General,   the  enemy  whom  fate  has 

1  See  "  Chartier  de  Thouars,"  378. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  309 

delivered  into  your  hands  appeals  to  your  justice  and 
humanity  to  deal  with  him  a  little  less  rudely  than  to 
confine  him  where  he  is  at  present,  in  a  room  without  a 
fire,  where  he  is  dying  of  cold  and  damp.  Whenever  he 
wishes  to  procure  anything  for  himself,  he  is  met  with  a 
refusal  which  he  is  told  is  the  General's  order.  He  finds  it 
hard  to  believe  that  such  orders  come  from  you,  and  that 
after  having  fought  against  him  bravely  and  loyally,  you 
can  take  pleasure  in  thus  torturing  him  in  his  last  moments. 
This  very  day  he  has  been  refused  fish,  in  the  fear, 
apparently,  that  he  might  endeavour  to  choke  himself. 
Be  assured.  General,  that  such  a  design  is  far  from  enter- 
ing his  head,  and  that,  after  having  so  often  braved  death, 
he  knows  how  to  await  it  with  perfect  composure.  Be 
assured  also  that  he  will  not  try  to  escape,  and  that  in 
this  respect  you  may  place  more  reliance  on  his  brigand's 
word  than  on  all  the  sentinels  in  the  world.  Be  so  kind 
therefore  as  to  order  him  a  fire  and  such  food  as  he  can  eat 
and  you  may  always  count  on  the  gratitude  of  one,  who, 
after  being  your  enemy,  hopes,  at  least,  to  merit  your 
esteem." 

During  his  cross-examination  by  the  Republican 
general,  Rossignol,  at  Rennes,  Talmond  was  questioned 
as  to  his  communications  with  England.  His  replies 
were  so  characteristic  of  his  brave  loyalty  to  the  cause 
for  which  he  was  about  to  die,  that  they  demand  full 
quotation  here  : 

"  Did  you  not,"  asked  General  Rossignol,  the  President 
of  the  court,  "  carry  on  a  correspondence  with  England, 
who  promised,  at  some  time  not  specified,  to  send  you 
men,  victuals  and  ammunition  and  especially  to  collabo- 
rate with  you  in  an  attack  on  Granville  ?  " 

Talmond.     "  Yes." 


310  FROM   THE   CRUSADES 

RossignoL     "  Then  why  did  this  attack  fail  ?  '* 

T almond.  "  Reports  dishonouring  certain  of  the 
leaders  had  been  circulated  in  the  royal  army,  which  on 
that  account  failed  to  charge  with  its  accustomed  ardour. 
Moreover  the  English  broke  their  word  and  physical  and 
local  causes  prevented  them  from  disembarking/'  ^ 

RossignoL  "  If  England  broke  her  word  to  you  then 
you  must  owe  her  ministers  a  grudge,  and  being  quit  of 
any  obligation  to  them,  there  can  be  no  reason  why, 
before  you  die,  you  should  not  serve  your  country  by 
revealing  the  plots  laid  against  her/' 

T almond.  "  I  am  resolved  to  go  to  the  grave  bearing 
with  me  the  esteem  of  all  parties.  You  cannot  have 
hoped  that  I  should  dishonour  myself  by  such  baseness. 
Whether  they  were  friendly  or  hostile,  we  and  the  foreign 
powers  served  the  same  cause.'* 

A  Poitevin  emigre,  who  met  Madame  de  Tarente  in 
England,  spoke  truly  when  he  said  that  her  brother-in-law 
had  replied  to  his  accusers  like  a  god.  That  same  noble 
loyalty,  high  courage,  and  proud  dignity  which  inspired 
these  words  the  Prince  de  Talmond  displayed  to  the  end. 

Meanwhile  the  unhealthy  condition  of  the  Rennes 
prison  had  caused  the  outbreak  of  an  epidemic,  to  which 
Talmond,  exhausted  by  cold,  hunger  and  illness  rapidly 
succumbed.  It  was  because  the  serious  state  of  his  health 
threatened  to  deprive  them  of  their  victim,  that  the 
Revolution  authorities,  denying  the  Prince's  request  to  be 
tried  at  Paris,  hurried  him  before  the  Revolution  court- 
martial  at  Vitre. 

On  the  way  thither  the  Prince  became  so  iU  that  he  was 
thought  to  be  dying.  At  his  trial  the  acute  sore  throat, 
which  was  one  of  the  worst  symptoms  of  the  Rennes 
epidemic,  hardly  left  him  any  voice  with  which  to  reply  to 

1  This  answer  is  vague,  but  thus  is  it  reproduced  by  Chassin  in 
"  La  Vendue  Patriote,  III.,"  545. 


TO  THE  FRENCH   REVOLUTION  311 

his  accusers.  But  such  words  as  he  was  able  to  utter 
were  bravely  spoken.  To  the  charge  of  treason  Talmond 
replied  :  "  Only  if  I  had  done  otherwise  than  I  have 
should  I  have  deserved  to  be  called  a  traitor.'* 

From  the  moment  of  his  arrest  the  Prince  must  have 
known  that  he  was  foredoomed.  The  Vitre  court  con- 
demned him,  "  as  one  of  the  infernal  horde  of  the  brigands 
of  La  Vendee,"  to  suffer  the  confiscation  of  all  his  property 
by  the  state,  if  that  had  not  already  been  done,  and  to  be 
delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  '*  Avenger  of  the  People  " 
— for  with  this  proud  title  they  styled  the  executioner — 
within  four  hours  to  be  put  to  death  on  the  public  square 
of  Laval. 

The  brevity  of  the  interval  between  the  pronounce- 
ment of  the  sentence  and  its  execution  was  due,  no 
doubt,  to  the  judge's  fear  lest  a  natural  death  should 
rob  them  of  their  valuable  victim  and  avert  so  striking 
an  example  of  popular  vengeance  as  the  capital 
punishment  of  this  great  noble  in  the  very  heart  of 
his  own  domains. 

It  was  on  January  27th,  three  weeks  after  his  arrest, 
that  Talmond  was  conveyed  to  Laval,  that  town  which 
he  had  so  sanguinely  hoped  to  make  the  centre  of  a  royalist 
revival. 

On  the  way  the  miserable  horses,  commandeered  by  the 
Sans-Culottes  to  draw  their  prisoner's  conveyance,  broke 
down  ;  and  the  condemned  Prince  must  needs  wait  by 
the  roadside  until  others  had  been  procured. 

Arrived  at  the  place  of  execution,  the  "  Avenger  of  the 
People  "  seemed  to  hesitate  to  exact  retribution  from  his 
princely  prey.  Whereupon  Talmond  adjured  him  not  to 
delay,  saying,  "  I  have  done  my  duty,  now  it  is  for^'you  to 
do  yours." 


312  FROM  THE  CRUSADES 

The  Prince,  by  his  wife  Henriette  d'Argouges,  left  one 
son,  Leopold,  a  boy  of  seven,  who  at  the  time  of  his  father's 
death  was  with  his  mother  in  Switzerland. 

When  he  grew  up  Prince  Leopold  was  forced  to  serve 
in  Napoleon's  army,  and  by  his  display  of  hereditary 
courage  won  the  Emperor's  praise  in  the  Russian 
campaign.  In  1814,  the  Prince  de  Talmond  joined  his 
King,  Louis  XVIIL,  in  London.  Thence,  having  been 
appointed  colonel  of  a  French  regiment  of  dragoons,  he 
returned  with  his  sovereign  to  Paris.  A  year  later,  on 
November  7th,  1815,  he  died.  Leopold,  in  1812,  had 
married  Felicie  de  Durfort  Duras,  by  whom  he  had  no 
children. 

Prince  Antoine's  widow,  Henriette  d'Argouges,  in  1819, 
married  Auguste  de  La  Rochejaquelein,  younger  brother 
of  the  famous  La  Vendee  general. 

Six  months  after  his  twin  brother's  execution,  the  Abbe 
de  La  Tremoille,  in  a  similar  manner,  suffered  death  at 
Paris. -^ 

The  story  of  his  accusation  and  trial  in  the  Salle  de 
I'Egalite  of  the  Palais  de  Justice,  by  the  Revolution 
Tribunal,  throws  a  strong  light  on  the  proceedings  of  the 
Revolutionists  during  those  last  days  of  the  Reign  of 
Terror.  That  was  a  time  when  no  proofs  of  the  guilt  of  the 
accused  were  demanded.  "  There  never  are  any  proofs," 
says  the  leader  of  the  jury  in  "  Les  Dieux  ont  Soif."  ^  In 
those  days  men  judged  with  the  heart  not  with  the  reason, 
and  they  always  condemned  ;  for  their  hearts  told  them 
that  it  was  only  by  the  removal  of  every  possible  enemy 
that  the  Republic  could  endure. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  the  Abbe  de  La  Tremoille  and 

1  On  June  15th,  1794. 

2  Anatole  France,  191 1. 


ro  THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION  313 

forty  other  accused,  all  completely  unknown  to  one 
another,  were  thunderstruck  to  find  themselve.-)  hurried 
before  the  Revolution  Tribunal,  and  embraced  in  the 
common  charge  of  conspiring  the  death  of  Robespierre.  It 
was  not  these  innocent  royalists,  but  the  Republicans  them- 
selves who,  but  a  month  later,  were  to  plot  the  tyrant's 
death.  Had  only  La  Tremoille's  trial  been  postponed  a 
few  weeks,  he  with  hundreds  of  other  prisoners  might 
have  profited  from  the  Incorruptible's  sudden  execution. 

At  the  Abbe's  trial  no  attempt  whatever  was  made  to 
establish  the  formal  charge  under  which  he  laboured. 
The  cross-examination  turned  chiefly  on  the  intercourse 
between  La  Tremoille  and  his  late  brother  Talmond,  when 
the  latter  was  passing  through  Paris  on  his  way  to  La 
Vendee.-^ 

"  You  did  not  speak  the  truth  when  you  said  you  had 
only  once  seen  your  brother." 

"  I  don't  pretend  to  say  I  only  saw  him  once,"  was  the 
reply.  "  I  saw  him  five  or  six  times  at  the  Opera  ;  and 
then  I  told  him  he  was  a  great  fool  and  that  he  would  be 
arrested." 

It  was  not  however  on  the  charge  of  comphcity  with  his 
brother,  but  with  these  forty  persons,  none  of  whom  he 
had  ever  seen  before,  that  the  Abbe  was  condemned  and 
harried  to  the  scaffold,  where  he  perished  beneath  the 
guillotine  on  June  15th,  1794. 

In  the  following  year  Prince  Louis  de  La  Tremoille  took 
his  brother's  place  in  La  Vendee,  and  for  a  while  served 
under  the  Comte  de  Puisaye. 

After  the  Quiberon  disaster,  La  Tremoille  strongly 
advocated   peace   and   helped   to   negotiate  it.     Prince 

*  See  Wallon,  *'  Histoire  du  Tribunal  Revolutionnaire  de  Paris," 
ed.,  1881,  IV.,  198—200. 


314  FROM    THE    CRUSADES 

Louis'  campaign  in  La  Vendee  followed  by  the  Duke's 
three  months'  service  there  in  1798  closed  for  a  while  the 
La  Tremoilles'  participation  in  the  warfare  of  the  Revolu- 
tion period.  Louis  continued  to  act  as  the  trusted  agent 
of  Louis  XVIIL,  both  in  Paris  and  other  European  cities. 
During  the  Hundred  Days  he  was  sent  to  the  west  of 
France  to  see  if  he  could  raise  that  region  against 
Napoleon.  But  his  efforts  met  with  complete  failure,  and 
he  was  glad  to  accept  from  Napoleon's  general,  Foy,  a 
passport  into  England. 

On  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy  after  Waterloo,  the 
La  Tremoilles  were  reinstated  in  all  the  honours  and 
emoluments  which  their  ancestors  had  enjoyed. 

Prince  Louis'  first  wife,  the  Countess  of  Langeron, 
having  died,  he  married,  in  1834,  Augusta  Murray, 
Countess  of  Dunmore.  Three  years  later  he  died  at 
Aix-la-Chapelle.  Though  the  least  interesting,  he  was 
probably  the  most  level-headed  of  the  four  brothers. 

Meanwhile,  the  head  of  the  house  hkewise  had  been 
twice  a  widower  ;  Emmannuelle  de  Chatillon,  as  we  have 
seen,  died  at  St.  Petersburg  in  1814  ;  three  years  after, 
the  Duke  married  Marie  Virginie,  Comtesse  de  Saint- 
Didier,  who,  after  having  borne  him  two  daughters,^  died 
in  1829  ;  in  the  following  year  La  Tremoille  took  to  him- 
self a  third  wife,  Josephine-Eugenie- Valentine  Walsh, 
Comtesse  de  Serrant. 

The  Comtesse  de  Serrant,  who  belonged  to  the  famous 
Irish  Jacobite  family  of  Walsh,  was  a  great  heiress. 
Through  her  marriage  with  the  Duke  there  came  into  the 
possession  of  the  La  Tremoilles  the  magnificent  chateau 
of  Serrant,  near  Angers,  which  is  at  present  the  favourite 
family  abode.     The  Comtesse  de  Serrant  was  the  mother 

1  One  became  Princesse  de  Salm,  the  other  Baroness  of  Wykerslooth. 


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TO    THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION  315 

of  the  late  Duke,  who,  besides  his  invaluable  publication 
of  La  Tremoille  documents,  has  written  two  records  of  his 
mother's  family.-^ 

And  here  we  must  leave  Charles  Bretagne  de  La 
Tremoille.  His  varied  adventures  on  the  battlefield,  in 
a  Neapolitan  dungeon,  on  the  turf,  at  the  gaming 
table,  in  the  ball  room,  and  in  the  alcove  are  at  an  end. 
At  six  and  sixty,  he  is  range,  and  about  to  settle  down  to 
domestic  felicity. 

"  There  are  two  births  ;  " 
sang  WilHam  Cartwright  in  his  verses  "  To  Chloe," 

"  the  one  when  light 
First  strikes  the  new  awaken'd  sense  ; 
The  other  when  two  souls  unite. 
And  we  must  count  our  life  from  thence  : 
When  you  loved  me  and  I  loved  you 
Then  both  of  us  were  born  anew.'' 

In  such  ardent  words,  had  the  Due  de  La  Tremoille  been 
a  poet,  he  might  have  sung  of  his  marriage  with  Valentine 
de  Serrant ;  for  even  the  prose  of  his  "  Recollections  " 
glows  with  the  passion  inspired  by  this  attractive  lady, 
to  the  happiness  of  his  union  with  whom  the  Duke,  in  his 
"  Recollections,"  has  consecrated  a  rapturous  paragraph. 
It  forms  a  fitting  close  to  the  story  of  his  chequered 
career.  It  may  also  afford  a  not  inappropriate  con- 
clusion to  the  history  of  his  famous  house. 

Referring  to  the  uneventfulness  of  his  later  life,  the 
Duke  writes  : 

*'  One  day  alone  stands  out  in  my  memory,  Sep- 
tember   14th,   1830,  when    to    the   friendship    of    poor 

1  One,  translated  into  English  under  the  title  of  "  A  Royal  Family, 
Irish  and  French,  and  Prince  Charles  Edward,"  (1904),  and  another, 
"  Mon  Grand-pere,  (Philippe  Fran9ois  Walsh)  k  la  cour  de  Louis  XV. 
et  a  celle  de  Louis  XVI."  (1904). 


3i6  FROM  THE  CRUSADES  TO  THE  REVOLUTION 

Archambauld  de  Talleyrand  Perigord,  I  owed  the  hand 
of  Mdlle.  Valentine  de  Serrant,  that  ravishing  and  angelic 
being  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  so  much  happiness. 
Here  I  must  close,  being  incapable  of  adequately 
depicting  that  angel  of  goodness  whom  I  shall  adore 
until  I  draw  my  last  breath." 


INDEX 


Abba  YE,  prison,  281,  286 
Abbeville,  80 
Abrantes,  Duke  of,  229 
Acton,  Sir  John,  289  &  n.  2,  290, 

293.  295,  296 
Adelaide,  Princess  of  France,  272 
Adigio,  R.,  290,  291 
Afryke,  town  of,  6  sqq. 
Agadingor,  8 
Agen,  78 

Agincourt,  Battle  of,  16,  23 
Agnadello,  Battle  of,  78 
Aigueperse,  24 
Aix-la-Chapelle, 

death  of  Prince  Louis  de  La 

Tremoille  at,  314 
Treaty  of,  263 
Albany,  Duke  of,  88 
Albret, 

Charles  d',  marries  Marie  de 
Sully,    Dame   de   La   Tre- 
moille, 15 
Charlotte  d',  69  &  n.,  70,  83 
Hotel  d',  216 

Louise  d',  Duchesse  de  Valen- 
tinois,  second  wife  of  Louis 
II.,  Comte  de  La  Tremoille, 

83.84 

Alcala,  241 

Alen^on, 

Francois  Due  d',  215 

Jean  Due  d',  31,  32  &  n.,  34, 

35.  39 
Alexander,  Emperor,  13 
Alexander  VI.,  Pope,  62,  63,  67, 

69,  76 
Alice  (in  "  Peveril  of  the  Peak  "), 

122 
Almanza,  Battle  of,  247 


Alps,  the,  62,  66,  71,  75,  76,  80,  88 
Altenburg, 

Anthony,  Count  of,  209,  210, 
277 

Charlotte  Am61ie,  Countess  of. 
See  La  Tremoille. 

Gunther,  Count  of,  209 
Alviano,  General,  8i 
Amboise,  251 

Georges  d',  76 

La  Tremoille  estates  of ,  55,  56 

Marguerite     d'.      See     Mar- 
guerite. 

Mme.  des  Ursins  at,  244 
Amiens,  195,  283 
Ancre,  Mar6chal  d'.     See  Concini, 
Andalusia,  247 
Angelo,  Michael,  220 
Angers,  97,  98,  201,  298,  299,  314 
Angouleme, 

Charles  of,  83  n.  ^ 

Francis  of.     See  Francis   I., 
King  of  France. 

Joan  of,  83  n.  ^ 

John  of,  83  n.  ^ 
Angoumois,  60 
Anjou, 

Charles  d',  38 

Marie  d',  61 

province  of,  38,  60 

Yolande  d'.     See  Yolande. 
Anne  of  Austria,  119 

d'Egmont,  109  n.  ^ 

of  Saxony,  no  «. 

Queen  of  England,  208 
Antibes,  233 
Antwerp,  109  n.  ^ 
Apennines,  the,  63,  64 
Ardres,  87 


3i8 


INDEX 


Argenson,  262,  263 

Argouges,  Henriette  de,  Princesse 

de  Talmond,  312 
Armagnac, 

Bernard,  Count  of,  17,  21 
faction  of,  21,  24,  25 
Armand,  Count,  285,  286 
Arragon, 

Charlotte  of,  igg  n.^ 

Ferdinand  of,  63 

Frederick  of,  87,  155  n.,  198, 

199  n.  1 
house  of,  vi. 
Arras,  5,  6,  13 
Artois, 

Charles,  Comte  d',  279,  284, 

288,  296 
Robert,  Comte  d',  2,  12 
Arundel  House,  179 
Asturias,  the  Prince  of,  119 
AthoU,  John,  Marquis  of,  166,  167 
Aubign^ 

Agrippa  d',  99,  100,  106,  113 
d'.  Secretary  of  La  Princesse 

des  Ursins,  239 

Fran^oise    d'.    Marquise    de 

Maintenon,  214,  216,  222, 

223,  233,  234,  241,  242,  243, 

244,  245,  249,  251,  253,  254 

Aubigny,  d',  62  n. 

Aubry,  Renee  Julie,  Duchesse  de 

Noirmoustier,  215 
Auch.     See  Jean  de  La  Tremoille, 

Archbishop  of,  78 
Augereau,  General,  291 
Aunis,  90 
Auron,  R.,  28 
Auvergne, 

Jeanne  d'.     See  Jeanne. 
Marie  d',  24 
province,  24,  57,  58 
Auxerre,  33,  197 
Ave  Maria,  convent  of,  121 
Avignon,  87,  264 
Avranches,  304,  305,  306 
Azala,   daughter  of  the  King  of 
Tunis,  9 


Babylon,  140 

Bac,  Rue  de,  63,  282 

Baden,  Grand  Duke  of,  297 

Baggerley,  the  Rev.   Humphrey, 

161 
Bais,  257  n.  ^ 
Bajazet  (sumamed  Ildemin),   11, 

12,  13 
Balkans,  the,  11 
Barberini  Palace,  220 
Barbette,  Hotel  de,  22 
Barcelona,  235,  236,  245 
Barege,  181 
Barrois,  George  de  Craon's  estates 

in,  49 
Barthelemy,  Edouard,  xi. 
Baschi,  Perron  de,  62  n.  ^ 
Basingstoke,  286 
Bastille,  the,  85,  120 
Bavaria,    Electoral      Prince     of, 

227 
Bayard,  51  n. 
Bayonne,  241,  253 
Beauce,  20 
Beaujeu,    Anne    de,    56,    57,   59, 

60 
Beaulieu,  General,  290 

knight  of,  29 
Beaumaris,  165 
Beaune,  wine  of,  19 
BeauvoUiers,  305  w. 
Bedford, 

Francis,  Duke  of,   276  &  n., 

286 
John,  Duke  of,  33,  34 
town  of,  284,  286 
Bellin,  the  Comte  de,  116 
Benaize,  R.,  i 
Beneventum,  Count  of,  234 
Benjamin,  Sieur,  176 
Bentinck, 

Charlotte    Sophie,    Countess, 
211  &  n.  1,  277  &  n.  1,  294 
&  n.  1,  295,  297 
Count,  211 
Bernard,     Count    of    Armagnac. 

See  Armagnac. 


INDEX 


319 


Bernini,   Giovanni  Lorenzo,   220, 

221 
Berrie,  principality,  55  n.  ^ 
Berry, 

appanage  of  Jeanne  de  France, 
70 

duchy,  75  n.'^ 

forests  of,  53 

Jean,  Duke  of,  23 

La  Trdmoille  lands  in,  38,  43^ 

51 

Berwick, 

Duke  of,  225,  239,  240,  247 

&  n.,  264 
town,  169 
B6thune,  Maximilien  de.  Marquis 
de  Rosny,  Due  de  Sully,   112, 
116,  118,  179 
Bidan,  62 
Billard,  Jean.  86 
Bingen,  288 
Birch,  General,  163 
Blecourt,  French  Ambassador  at 

Madrid,  229,  230 
Blois,  39,  69  n.,  105  n.  2 
Bliicher,  General,  81 
Bohemia,  70,  128 

Elizabeth,     Queen     of.     See 
Stuart,  Elizabeth. 
Bois-le-Duc,  199 
Bolingbroke,  Lord,  250,  251 
Bolton-le-Moors,  148,  149,  161 
Bommiers,  chateau,  43,  51,  52,  53, 

55.68 
Bordeaux,  119 
M.  de,  168 
Borgia,  Caesare,  69  &  w.,  83 

Pope.     See  Alexander  VI. 
Born,  Bertrand  de,  24 
Bouchet,  Jean,  xi.,  52,  55,  58,  59, 
61,  74  n.,  77,  78  «.  1,  81 «,,  82,  90 
Bouillon, 

Antoinette  de,  260  w.  ^ 
Cardinal  de,  225,  226 
Elisabeth,  Duchesse  de.     See 

Nassau. 
Emmanuel  Theodore,  259 


Godefroi,  Due  de,  2 

Henri,  Due  de,    112   &  n.  '^^ 

113 

Marie  Hortense  de.     See  La 
Tremoille. 
Boulogne,  283 

county  of,  24 

Jeanne,  Countess  of  La  Tre- 
moille, 23,  24,  25 

siege  of,  60 

Treaty  of,  92  n.  ^ 
Bourbon, 

Charlotte   de,    third   wife   of 
William  the  Silent,  109  & 

Constable  of  France,  81,  87, 

88,  89 
Gabrielle  de,  Countess  of  La 

Tremoille.     See  Gabrielle. 
Henri  I.,  Prince  de  Cond6,  95 

sqq. 
Henri  II.,  Prince  de  Cond6,  92, 

loi,  103,  1145^^. 
John  I.,  23 
Louis,   Due  de  Montpensier, 

130  w. 
Louis  II.,  Due  de,  6  sqq. 
Louis     Joseph,      Prince     de 

Conde,  287,  288 
Louis,  "  the  Great  Conde,"  as 

Due  d'Enghien,  121  &  n., 

176 
as  Prince  de  Conde,  184,  185, 

187,  sqq.,  194.  197 
Marie  de,  130  n. 
the  family  of,  87 
the  house  of,  in  Spain,  214, 

244,  245,  246,  248 
Bourdonnais,  Rue  de,  274 
Bourges,  25,  28 
Bournisseaux, 

Berthre  de,  93 
Mme.  de,  56 
Brabant,  Duchess  of,  10 
Bracciano, 

Duchess  of.     See  Talleyrand 

Marie  Anne  de. 


320 


INDEX 


Bracciano — continued. 

Flavio,  Duke  of,  second  hus- 
band of  La  Princesse  des 
Ursins,    218,    219    &   n.  1, 
221  sqq. 
Livio  Odescalchi,  Duke  of,  224 
Bradlaugh,  Regicide,  171 
Brandenbourg,  Frederick  William, 

Elector  of,  182,  183,  196 
Brandon, 

Charles,     Duke    of     Suffolk, 

130  n. 
Eleanor,  130  n. 
Mary,  Duchess  of.     See  Mary. 
Brantome,  104 
Braschi,  Palazzo,  220 
Brighton,  Lady,  298 
Brill,  177,  178 
Brittany,  173,  197 

Anne,  Duchess  of,  68  sqq. 
Barons'  War  in,  59 
duchy  and  province,  76  w.^,  303 
estates  of,  185 
Francis,  Duke  of,  40 
John,  Duke  of,  32,  37 
marches  of,  60 
Broceliande,  133  &  n. 
Brouage,  95,  97 
Bruges,  26,  27 
Brussels,  44,  118 
Bueil,  Jean  de,  37,  38 
Bulkeley,  friend  of  Prince  Charles 

Edward,  264,  266 
Burgos,  246,  247 
Burgundy, 

Duchess  of,  4 
duchy  and  province  of,  79 
Dukes  of, 
Charles  the  Rash,  44,  45,  47 

&  n.,  48,  54 
John  the  Fearless,  11,  12, 

17  sqq. 
Philip  the  Bold,  4,  5,  6,  11^ 

13.  14,  17 
Philip  the  Good,  25,  26,  27, 

33,  34,  36,  38,  44 
faction  of,  17,  18,  21,  24,  36 


Georges  de  Craon  conquers, 

54 
governs,  48 
La  Tr^moille  defends  against 

the  Emperor,  88 
La  Tremoille  lands  in,  3,  4  n- 
Louis   11.    de   La   Tr6raoille. 
Governor  of,  77 
Burie,  257  n.  2 
Burke,  Edmund,  276  n.  ^ 
Butchers,     Corporation     of.     See 
Cabochiens. 

Caboche,  Jean,  18 

Cabochiens,  faction  of,  18  sqq. 

Caesar,  Julius,  66 

Calais,  23 

Capua,  63 

Caroline,  Queen  of  Naples,  289  & 

n.  2,  292,  296 
Carrara,  quarries  of,  64 
Cartagena,  Alvaro  di,  90 
Carthage,  6,  66 
Castile, 

Admiral  of,  244 
Isabella  of,  63 
the  estates  of,  237 
Catalonia,  245,  247,  249 
Catherine,     Empress     of    Russia, 

265 
Cecil, 

Anne,  130  n. 

William,  Lord  Burleigh,  130  n, 
Chalais, 

Adrien  Blaise,  Prince  de.     See 

Talleyrand. 
Marie    Anne,    Princesse    de. 
See  Talleyrand. 
Chambery,  278 
Chambord,  261 
Chamillard,  French  War  Minister, 

245,  247,  248 
Champagne, 

Georges  de  Craon,  Governor 

of,  46,  47 
the  Prince  de  Tarente's  cam- 
paign in,  191 


INDEX 


321 


Champnol-16s-Dijon,  4 
Chancey,  Monsieur,  282 
Chandieu.     See  Zamariel. 
Chanteloup,  chateau,  251 
Chantilly,  117 
Charenton,  187,  188 
Charles  VI.,  King  of  France,  3, 4, 6, 
10,  II,  13,  17,  19,  22,  25  n. 
as  crowned  King,  25  n.,  33 

sqq. 
as  Dauphin,  17  n.,  25  &  n., 
sqq. 
Charles  VIII.,  King  of  France, 
as  Dauphin,  47,  53,  54 
as  King,  56  sqq. 
Charles  IX.,  King  of  France,  56  w.  1 
Charles  I.,  King  of  England,  130, 
131,  136,  137,  148,  150,  151,  153, 
154,  156,  159  M.,  171,  177  sqq., 
233  n. 
Charles  II.,  King  of  England, 

after  Restoration,   165,   170, 

171 
as  nominal   King,    160,   174, 

192,  194,  260 
as  Prince  of  Wales,  153,  182 
Charles  V.,  Emperor, 
as  Emperor,  91 
as  King  of  Spain,  84,  226 
Charles  II.,  King  of    Spain,  227 

sqq. 
Charles,  Archduke  of  Austria,  227, 

228,  231,  244,  249 
Charles,     Earl     of     Derby.      See 

Derby. 
Charles  Gustavus,  King  of    Swe- 
den, 193,  196 
Charles,  Prince  de  Talmond.     See 

Talmond. 
Charlotte  Brabantine  de  Nassau, 
Duchesse    de    Thouars.       See 
Nassau. 
Charlotte  de  Bourbon,  William  the 

Silent's  wife.     See  Bourbon. 
Charlotte  de  La  Tremoille,  Prin- 
cesse  de  Conde.     See  La  Tre- 
moille. 

C.R. 


Charlotte  de  La  Tr6moille,  Coun- 
tess   of    Derby.     See    La    Tre- 
moille. 
Charpaignes,  Gouges  de,  24 
Charroux,  Abbe  of.     See  Talmond, 

Frederic  Guillaume,  Prince  de. 
Chartres, 

Regnault   de.  Archbishop  of 

Reims,  33 
town  of,  107  w.  1 
Chateau-Gonthier,  302 
Chatelet,  prison,  18 
Chatellerault,  107  sqq. 

Dukes    of.       See     Talmond, 
Princes  of. 
Chatillon, 

Duchess  of,  275,  282 
Emmanuelle  de.    See  Tarente, 

Princesse  de. 
town  of,  299 
Chatillons,  the,  124 
Chelsea,  154 

Chenonceaux,  chateau,  vi. 
Chester,  131,  135,  148,  162  n.  ^ 
Chevreuse,  Duchesse  de,  185 
Chinon,  31,  37,  38,  44 
Chissenhall,  Captain,  141 
Christian,  William,  123,  164,  171 
Churchill,  Sarah,  Duchess  of  Marl- 
borough, 214 
Civita  Castellana,  Battle  of,  393, 

394  w.  ^ 
Claude,  Queen  of  France,  52 
Clement  VII.,  Pope,  10 
Clermont,  Bishop  of.     See  Char- 

paigne.  Gouges  de. 
Clifford,     Earl     of     Cumberland, 

130  «. 
Clisson,  Olivier  de,  Constable  of 

France,  10,  11 
Coblentz,  284 
Coetivy, 

Charles  de,  83  m.  ^ 
Louise  de.     See  Louise. 
Coligny, 

Admiral,  x.,  no,  in  w.  * 
Louise  de.     See  Louise. 


322 


INDEX 


Colonna, 

house  of,  218,  219 
Prospero,  80 

Commines,  Philippe  de,  44,  55  n.^ 

Compiegne, 

Charles  VII.  enters,  34 
Joan  of  Arc  taken  at,  36 
negotiates  with  Burgundy,  34, 

35 
Prince  de  Tarente  arrested  at, 

195 
Concini,   Mar6chal  d'Ancre,    119, 

120  &  «.  1 
Cond6, 

Charlotte    de    La    Tremoille, 
Princesse  de.     See  La  Tre- 
moille. 
H6tel  de,  118,  187  &  «. 
house  of,  vi.,  121 
Princes  of.     See  Bourbon. 
Rue  de,  118,  187  w. 
Constantinople,  siege  of,  12 
Conti,  Prince  de,  102 
Copenhagen,  202,  207 
Corisande  ("  La  Belle  "),  103 
Coudray,  tower  of,  37 
Courtenay,  Sir  Peter,  4 
Coutras,  Battle  of,  100,  105 
Crane,  Sir  Richard,  149 
Craon, 

chateau,  14,  49 

Georges,     Seigneur    de.     See 

La  Tremoille. 
house  of,  14  w. 
Cre9y,  Battle  of,  3 
Creneaux,  Hotel  de,  85 
Cr^py-en-Valois,  skirmish  at,  34 
Crequy, 

Charles  de.  Prince  de  Poix, 

259 
Madeleine    de,    Duchesse    de 
La  Tremoille.     See  La  Tre- 
moille. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,   158,   171,   173, 

192,  222 
Cronstadt,  292 
Crusades,  v.,  i,  2,  6,  10,  14 


Crussol,  the  Bailli  de,  296 
Cuissard,  Mme.  de,  305 
Culloden,  Battle  of,  261,  262,  263 
Cuto,  General,  289 

Danube,  R.,  12 

Dauphin^,  29 

Delft,  126 

Denmark,  George,  Prince  of,  207, 

208 
Derby,  Countesses  of, 

Charlotte    de    La    Tremoille. 

See  La  Tremoille. 
Helen    de    Rupa,    as    Lady 
Strange,   159 
Derby,  Earls  of, 

Charles  Stanley,  as  Lord  Strange, 

134 

marries  Mdlle.  Rupa,  159 
negotiates  with  the  Par- 
liament, 159,  160 
runs   away  from   home, 
151  sqq. 
as  Earl  of  Derby, 

after  the  Restoration  sits 
in     House    of    Lords, 
169 


William  Christian,  171 
inherits     La     Tremoille 

temperament,  169 
quarrels  with  his  mother, 

167,  168 
taken  prisoner  at  Nant- 
wich,  168 
James  Stanley, 

as  Earl  of  Derby,  136  sqq.,  177 
as    Lord    Strange,    113,    129 
sqq. 
William  Stanley,  129,  130  &  n., 

135 
Dieppe,  176 
Dijon,  14,  77,  79 
Dol,  304,  306,  307 
Dole,  Seigneur  de  Craon  defeated 
at,  49 


INDEX 


323 


Dorchester,  Marquis  of.  See 
Pierrepoint,  Henry. 

Duckenfield,  General,  163 

Du  Defifand,  Mme.,  261,  262,  265, 
271,  272 

Dunbar,  159 

Dun-le-Roi  Chateau,  28 

Dunmore,  Augusta  Murray,  Coun- 
tess of,  Princesse  de  La  Tre- 
moille,  314 

Durfort  Duras,  Felicie  de,  Prin- 
cesse de  Talmond,  312 

Edinburgh,  158 

Edward  IV„  King  of  England,  60 
Egeria,  Prince  Charlie's.     See  Tal- 
mond, Marie  Jablonowski,  Prin- 
cesse de. 
Elizabeth  of  France,  daughter  of 
Henry  IV.,  119 
Queen  of  England,  95 
Queen  of  Spain.    See  Farnese. 
Ely  Bishop  of,  B>s 
Enghien,  Due  de.     See  Bourbon, 

Louis  de. 
EscoUes,  castle,  58 
Espinay,  257 

Estaples,  Treaty  of,  60  n. 
Este,  Beatrice  de,  74 
Estr6es, 

Abb6  d',  239,  240 
C6sar,  Cardinal  d',  217,  218, 
238,  239 
Etampes,  69,  187 
Eugene,  Prince,  248 

Fairfax,  Sir  Thomas,   142,   143, 

145,  154,  156 
Farmer,  Captain,  139 
Farnese,    Elizabeth,    Princess    of 

Parma,  Queen  of  Spain,  252 
Fay,  Mme.  de,  305 
Ferdinand,  King  of  Naples,  289, 

293.  296 
Ferrand,  Mdlle.,  269,  270 
Feuillants,  monastery  of,  280 
Figueras,  234 


Fitzherbert,  Mrs.,  287 
Flanders,  5,  6 
Florence,  62,  64,  296 
Fontainebleau,  117 
Fontaine-Fran9aise,     Battle     of, 

106 
Fornova,  Battle  of,  66,  76 
Fougeres,  60,  70,  303 
Fox,  Charles  James,  276 
Foy,  General,  314 
Franche,  Comte,  46 
Francis  I.,  King  of  France,  52,  80 

sqq. 
Frankfort,  211 
Frederick  the  Great,  252 

Elector  Palatine,  129,  137  n. 
Froissart,  xi.,  6,  9 
Fronde,  the,  v.,  vi.,  173,  184  sqq., 

215 
Frotte,  General,  296 

Gabrielle  de  Bourbon,  Countess 
de  La  Tremoille,  52,  57,  58,  59, 
69  n.,  82,  83,  84,  90,  94 
Gallo,  Marquis  del,  288,  289 
Gambarani  Bridge,  291 
Garigliano,  R.,  77  w. 
Gengay,  chateau,  28,  30 
Geneva,  13,  93 
Genevieve,  Adelaide.     See  Lange- 

ron.  Countess  of. 
Gen^vre,  Mont,  62 
Genoa,  Gulf  of,  63 

town  of,  64,  78,  254 
George,  Prince  of  Denmark.     See 

Denmark. 
George,  Prince  of  Wales,  284,  286, 

287 
Georges,  first  Count  of  La  Tre- 
moille.    See  La  Tremoille. 
Georges  de  La  Tremoille,  Seigneur 
de    Craon.     See    La    Tre- 
moille. 
de  La  Tremoille,  Seigneur  de 
Jonvelle.      See     Ija.     Tre- 
moille. 
G6rard,  11 1  «.  2 

Y2 


324 


INDEX 


G6vaudan,  36 

Giac,  Pierre  de,  27,  28,  38 

Gille  de  Rais,  16,  17,  25 

Gondi,  Hotel  de,  118 

Gonzaga,  Marquis  of  Mantua,  76, 

77 
Gonzague,  Anne  de  (known  as  "  La 

Palatine  "),  185 
Gonzala,  77 

Gournay,  Amelot,  Marquis  de,  243 
Gramont,  Due  de,  242 
Grandson,  Battle  of,  46 
Granville,  304,  305,  306,  309 
Gravesend,  178 
Gressart,  Perrinet,  26,  27 
Grdve,  Place  de.  188 
GrifEenfeld,    suitor    of    Charlotte 
Amelie  de  La  Tremoille,    207, 
208 
Grimm,  265 

Grollier,  Marquise  de,  296 
Guadalaxara,  252 
Gu^naud,  Radegonde,  3 
Guernsey,  98,  99,  104 
Guines,  257 
Guise,  105  «.  2 
Guisnes,  Captain  of,  85 
Guyenne, 

Duchesse  de,  28 

Duke  of  (Dauphin  Louis),  17 
&  «.,  19,  20,  21,  22,  28 

Hotel  de,  20 

province,  76,  186 

Hague,  the,  124,  125,   126,   128, 

129,  130, 134,  149, 177.  I93»  199' 

227,  228 
Halsall,  Edward,  141 
Hamburg,  294,  296,  297 
Hamilton,  Lady,  293 
Hampton  Court,  154 
Hanau  Muntzenburg,  Countess  of, 

183  &  n  1   184 
Hannibal,  66 
Harcourt,  Comte  d',  228  sqq.,  240, 

241 
Harrach,  Comte  d',  228,  229,  230 


Henri    de    Bourbon,    Prince    de 

Cond6.     See  Bourbon. 
Henri  IH.,   King  of  France,   94, 

96  &  n.,   loi,  104,  105   &  n.  2, 

214 

Henri  IV.,  a  descendant  of  Marie 
de  Sully,  15 

as  King  of  France,  centralises 
the  French  Government,  38. 
105,  107,  &  n.  1,  109,  186 
sqq. 
as  King  of  Navarre,  95,  96, 
99,  100,  loi,  102,  103,  105, 

215 
Henrietta  Maria, 

as  Duchess  of  Orleans,  233  «. 
as  Queen  Dowager,  171 
Queen  of  England,  130,   131, 

135.  137.  153.  155.  173 
Stanley.     See  Stanley. 
Henry  II.,  King  of  England,  56 
Henry  V.,  King  of  England,  16,  23, 

25 
Henry  VI.,  King  of  England,  34 
Henry  VII.,  King  of  England,  60, 

JO.  131 
Henry  VIII.,  King    of  England, 

84 
Hericourt,  Battle  of,  46 
Hesse  Cassel,  Emilie,  Princess  of, 
as  Princesse  de  Tarente,  183, 

193,  194.  i99i  201,  202 
as    the   friend    of   Mme.    de 

Sevigne,  203 — 211 
house  of,  vi. 

William  V.,  Landgraf,  183 
his  son,  Landgraf,  196 
Hesse  Philipstal,  Prince  of,  293 
Holland,  Colonel,  147 
Hungary,  70 
Hutchinson,  Colonel,  141 

Ile  Bouchard, 

Catherine  de  1',   Countess  of 

Tonnerre,  27,  28,  43,  44 
Chateau  de  1',  43,  44.  90 
domain  of,  132 


INDEX 


325 


He  de  Rhe,  55  n.  * 

Innocent  XII.,  Pope,  223,  228 

Ireton,   Lieu  tenant-General,    156, 
171 

Isabelle, 

Queen  of  England,  n 
Queen  of  France,  22,  23 

Issoudun,  cMteau,  27 

Ivry,  Battle  of,  106 

Jacqueville,  H61ion  de,  20 
James  I.,  King  of  England,  120, 

179 
James  II.,  King  of  England, 
as  Duke  of  York,  170,  207 
as  King  in  exile,  225,  231 
James  Stanley.     See  Derby,  Earls 

of. 
James  the  Old  Pretender,  231,  255, 

260,  263 
Jean,  Dauphin,  died  1416.  .17  n. 
Jeanne,  Queen  of  France,  67 — 70 
Jeanne  d'Auvergne, 

wife  of  Georges,  Comte  de  La 
Tremoille,    23,   24,  25,  27, 
49 
Jeremiah,  140 
Jersey,  305  n. 
Jerusalem, 

Jeanne  II.,  Queen  of,  10 
Yolande,      Queen     of.      See 
Yolande. 
Joan  of  Arc, 

relations  with  Georges  de  La 

Tremoille,  31 — 36 
relieves  Orleans,  186 
saves  France  from  the  Eng- 
lish, 26,  30 
John  the  Fearless.    See  Burgundy, 

Dukes  of. 
Jonson,  Ben,  135 
Jonvelle,  Sieur  de,  33,  37  n. 
Conte  de,  257  n.  2 
Georges     de     La     Tremoille, 
Seigneur  de.     See  La  Tre- 
moille, Georges, 
Joseph,  Emperor,  249 


Jouarre,  109  «.  * 
Joyeuse,  Due  de,  100 
Julius  II.,  Pope,  78 

Kingston,  Lord,  136 
Kirkcudbright,  159 
Knowsley,  135,  154,  156,  158,  165, 
168,  169,  171 


LABfe,  Louise,  114  ».  2 
La  Brosse,  Jacques  de,  89 
La  Charite,  26,  35 
La  Fayette, 

Gilbert  de,  25 

Marie  Madeleine  de.     See  La 
Tremoille. 

Rene  Armand  Mottier  de,  259 
La  Garnache,  chateau,  105 
La  Grange,  Jean  de,  64 
Lamballe,  la  Princesse  de,  282 
Lambert,  General,  169 
Lang,  Andrew,  262,  263,  265  sqq , 
Langeron,     Genevieve     Adelaide, 
Countess    of,    wife    of    Prince 
Louis  de  La  Tremoille,  297,  314 
Languedoc,  193 
Lannoy,  Charles  de,  88 
Lanti, 

Louise    Angelique,    Duchesse 
de,  212,  215,  217,  221 

the  Duke  of,  255 
Laon,   Bishop  of,   later  Cardinal 

d'Estrees.     See  Estrees. 
La  Roche-du-Mayne,  52  n.  ^ 
La  Rochefoucauld,  206 
La  Rochejaquelein, 

Auguste  de,  312 

Henri,  Comte  de,  300  &  n.  ^ 

Louis,  Marquis  de,  300  &  n., 

307 
Mme.  de,  301  &  n.,  302,  305  n., 

307 
La  Rochelle,  36,  98,  99,  109,  114 
Lathom,    the   Lady   of.     See   La 

Tremoille,   Charlotte,   Countess 

of  Derby. 


326 


INDEX 


Lathom  House,  131,  135,  137  sqq., 

156,  164,  169,  170,  260 
La   Tour  d'Auvergne,   Marie   de, 
Duchesse  de  La  Tremoille.     See 
La  Tremoille. 
La  Tour-Landry,  Antoinette  de, 

212 
La  Tr6moille, 

duchy  of  Thouars  and  La  Tre- 
moille, 
creation  of,  93 

its    descent    to    females    in 
default  of  heirs  male,  2,  93 
family  of, 

archives  of,  viii.  sqq. 
biography  of  a  La  Tremoille, 

xi. 
decline,  vi.,  vii. 
earliest    known    history    of, 

ix.  &  n. 
height   of   their   wealth   and 

influence,  vi. 
most  recent  biography  of  a 

La  Tremoille,  xi. 
Paris  mansion  of  (Hotel  des 
Creneaux),   85   &  n.^,   274 
&  n.^ 
persistent  dominance  of,  vi. 
seizure  of  lands  by  Revolu- 
tion Government,  viii.,  278 
the  La  Tremoille  women,  2 
their  role  in  French  history,  v. 
market  town  of,  i,  257 
spelling  of  name  of,  v.  &  n. 
Seigneurs  de,  i,  257 
Guillaume  II.,  2 
Guy  I.,  2 
Guy  v.,  3 
Guy  VI.,  3,  17 

Ambassador  in  England,  3 
dies  at  Rhodes,  14 
dominions  of,  3 
fights  against  the  English,  3 
fights  in  the  Crusades,  6 — 10 
marries  Marie  de  Sully,  3 
other  warlike  expeditions, 
11 — 14 


refuses  to  be  constable,  1 1 
taken  prisoner  at  Nicopolis, 

13 

tilts  with  Peter  de  Courte- 
nay,  4 

with   Philip   of   Burgundy 
prepares  to  invade  Eng- 
land, 5,  6 
Pierre,  i 

Thibaud  or  Imbaud,  2 
Counts  of, 

Georges,  First  Count, 

appropriates  the  King's 
taxes,  22 

attempts  to  seize  his  wife's 
lands,  25 

becomes  Dauphin's  chief 
favourite,  29 

character  of,  16,  17 

created  Count,  33 

death  at  Sully,  41 

does  not  bequeath  moral 
defects  to  descendants, 
except,  perhaps,  Cathe- 
rine de  Medicis,  42,  43  n. 

fights  against  the  English, 
21 

friendship  with  the  Dau- 
phin, 17,  19 

goes  on  an  embassy  to 
Bruges,  27 

his  fall  from  power,  37 — 40 

imprisons  Gouges  de  Char- 
paignes,  24 

joins  Dauphin  after  Treaty 
of  Troyes,  25 

joins  Queen  Isabelle's  court, 
22,  23 

liberated,  23 

marries  Jeanne  d'Auvergne, 

23 

ill-treats  her,  24 

her  death,  24 

murders  Pierre  de  Giac,  27 

28 
obesity  of,  37,  42,  48,  54, 

59 


INDEX 


327 


La  Tr6moiIle — continued. 
Counts  of — continued. 

Georges,    First    Count — con- 
tinued. 

quarrels  with  Constable 
Richemont,  29 

quarrels  with  the  Butchers, 
20 

relations  with  Joan  of  Arc, 
31—36 

rules  as  Councillor-Cham- 
berlain, 26,  29,  30,  32, 
66  n. 

schemes  to  marry  Catherine 
de  rile  Bouchard,  27 

taken  by  Perrinet  Gressart, 
26 

taken    prisoner    at    Agin- 
court,  23 
Louis  I.,  Second  Count,   42, 

43.  49.  50.  51.  53.  55 
Louis  II.,  Third  Count, 

a  witness  to  Louis  XII. 's 

contract   with    Anne    of 

Brittany,  69 
Anne's  dislike  of  him,  70, 

71.  75 

appointed  King's  Chamber- 
lain, 60 

Battle  of  Marignano  and 
death  of  his  only  son,  81, 
82 

betrothes  his  niece  to  Mont- 
morency, 84 

biography  by  Bouchet,  xi., 
52 

builds  mansion  in  Paris, 
and  there  entertains 
English  ambassadors,  85 
&  M.,  86,  274  &  n. » 

captures  Ludovico  Sforza, 

73.  75 

commands  against  re- 
bellious nobles  in  Brit- 
tany, 60,  303 

delivers  Paris  from  the 
English,  87 


dies  at  the  Battle  of  Pavia, 

89 
embassy  to  the  Pope,  61,  62 
endows         churches         at 

Thouars,  57 
escorts     Mary     Tudor     at 

Abbeville,  80 
established  in  possession  of 
lands     and     offices     by 
Louis  XII.,  66 
established  in  possession  of 
lands     and     offices     by 
Francis  I.,  80 
father's  death,  55 
first  Italian  campaign,  62 — 

66 
fourth,     fifth     and     sixth 

Italian  campaigns,  78 

funeral    progress    through 

Italy  and  France,  burial 

at  Thouars,  90 

Governor  of  Burgundy,  77 

guards  French  coast  against 

the  English,  76 
last  Italian  campaign,  88 — 

90 
lieutenant-general  in  Eng- 
lish wars,  60 
marries  Gabrielle  de  Bour- 
bon, 57,  58 
marries  grandson  to  Anne 

de  Laval,  87 
negotiates     Louis      XII. 's 
divorce  from  Jeanne  de 
France,  67 — 68 
obtains  restoration  of  for- 
feited estates,  50,  56 
on        Gabrielle's        death, 
marries  Louise  d'Albret, 
69  &  «..  83—84 
on  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of 

Gold,  86 
page  at  Louis  XL's  court,  54 
returns  to  France  ill,  76,  77 
romance,  55 

runs  away  from  home,  52, 
53.  176 


328 


INDEX 


La  Tr^moille — continued. 
Counts  of — continued. 

Louis  II.,  Third  Count — con- 
tinued. 
second    Italian    campaign, 

72—75 
seventh  Italian  campaign, 

80—82 
third  Italian  compaign,  76 
treats    with   the    Swiss   in 

Burgundy,  79  &  n. 
victory  of  Novara,  80 
youth  at  Bommiers,  513 — 5 
Francis,  fourth  Count,  80,  82, 
83  n.  1,  86,  87,  89,  90,  91, 
92,  155  n.  2,  198,  212,  213 
Dukes  of  Thouars,  also  styled 
Dukes    of    La     Tremoille, 
vii.,  I 
Louis  III.,  first  Duke,  91  sqq., 

130  n.,  199  n.  1,  212 
Claude,  second  Duke,  92,  122, 

130  n.,  137  n.,  176  n.  ^ 

199  n.  1 
at  Battle  of  Coutras,  100, 

105 
at  Battles  of  Ivy,  Fontaine- 

Frangaise,  sieges  of  Paris 

and  Rouen,  106 
becomes  a  Protestant,  99 
birth,  93 
classifies    family    archives, 

viii. 
financial  difficulties,  1 1 1 
flees  to  Guernsey,  98 
happiness  of  married  life, 

no,  112 
illness  and  death,  113 
joins  Protestants,  95 
marries  Charlotte  of  Nassau, 

109,  no 
one  of  the  twelve  peers  of 

France,  107 
power,  vi. 
presides  over  negotiations 

for  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 

107 — 109 


quarrels    with    Henry    of 

Navarre,  99,  100 
relations    with    his    sister 

Charlotte,  102 — 104 
serves  in  Catholic  army,  94 
services  rendered  to  the  Pro- 
testant cause,  104,  105 
upbringing,  94 
will,  113,  114 
Henry,  third  Duke,  viii.,  186, 

199  n.  1,  257 
abjures  Protestantism,  114, 

132,  174  &  n. 
bedridden  with  gout,  200 
birth,  112  &  «.  ^ 
character,  125 
claims  kingdom  of  Naples, 

155  &  n.  2 
corresponds  with  his  aunt 

Charlotte,  121 
financial    embarrassments, 

neglects  to  pay  his  sister's 

dowry,  132,  133 
life  as  a  country  gentleman, 

173 
marries  Marie  de  La  Tour 

d'Auvergne,  128 
renounces  his  dukedom  and 
peerage  in  favour  of  his 
son,  175,  195  &  n. 
travels,  125  &  «.,  126 
writes  to  Henrietta  Maria 
on      Oliver      Cromwell's 
death,  173  Sc  n.,  174 
Henry  Charles,  fourth  Duke. 

See  Tarente,  Prince  de. 
Charles    Belgique    Hollande, 
fifth  Duke,   193,  257,  258, 
259  &  n.,  260,  277 
Charles  Louis  Bretagne,  sixth 
Duke,  viii.,  ix.,  x.,  258  sqq., 
277  n. 
Charles  Armand  Ren6,  seventh 

Duke,  260,  277  n. 
Jean  Bretagne,  eighth  Duke, 
258,  273,  274,  277  &  w.,  278, 
284 


INDEX 


329 


La  Trdmoille — continued. 

Dukes  of  Thouars — continued. 
Charles  Bretagne,  ninth  Duke, 
as   Due   de   La   Tr^moille, 
financial  embarrass- 

ments,   diplomatic    mis- 
sions, visits  to  England, 
284—287 
as  Prince  de  Tarente,  274 
&  n.  ^  275,  276,  277  n., 
278,  279,  284,  285 
his  recollections,  275,  276, 
285,  288,  290,  291,  296, 
316 
in    Neapolitan  army,   and 
relations  with  Sir  John 
Acton,  288,  296 
in  Normandy  and  La  Ven- 
dee, 297,  314 
marriages,    275,    314,    315, 
316 
Louis   Charles,    tenth   Duke, 
viii.,  X.,  xi.,  xii.,  57  n.,  315  & 
n.  1 
Duchesses  of, 

Charlotte  Brabantine,  wife  of 
Duke  Claude.     See  Nassau. 
Emilie  of  Hesse  Cassel,  wife  of 
Duke  Henri  Charles.     See 
Hesse  Cassel. 
Emmanuelle     de     Chatillon, 
first  wife  of  Duke  Charles 
Bretagne.       See     Tarente, 
Princesse  de. 
Jeanne  de  Montmorency,  wife 
of  Duke  Louis.     See  Mont- 
morency. 
Josephine     Eugenie     Valen- 
tine Walsh,   third  wife  of 
Duke     Charles     Bretagne. 
See  Walsh. 
Madeleine  de  Cr^quy,  wife  of 
Duke  Charles  Belgique,  259 
Marie  de  La  Tour  d'Auvergne, 
wife  of  Duke  Henry,  viii.  & 

«.,  56,   133,   151.   155,   157 
sqq.,  165,  167,  168,  171,  174, 


177,  186,  196  197,  199,  200 

257 
Marie  Genevieve  de  Durfort, 
first    wife    of    Duke    Jean 
Bretagne,  259 
Marie  Hortense  de  Bouillon, 
wife  of  Duke  Charles  Ar- 
mand  Ren6,  259 
Marie      Madeleine      de      La 
Fayette,     wife     of     Duke 
Charles  Louis  Bretagne,  259 
Marie  Maximilienne  de  Salm- 
Kerbourg,   second    wife  of 
Duke  Jean  Bretagne,  259, 
273,  276  sqq.,  288 
Anne  Charles  Frederic  de.     See 

Talmond,  Prince  de. 
Armand  de,  174 
Caroline  de,  279 
Charles  Angus te,  Abbe  de,  and 
Dean     of     Strasbourg,    viii., 
274  &  n.  ^  275,  298,  299,  312, 

313 
Charlotte  Am61ie  or  Emilie  de. 
Countess  of  Altenburg,  184  & 
n.  2,  193  &  n.  1,  198,  201,  202, 
207  sqq.,  277 
Charlotte      de,     Princesse      de 

Conde,  92 
biography  of,  xi. 
birth,  93 

changes  of  religion,  99,  114 
imprisoned     on     charge     of 

murdering  Conde,  100 — 103 
last  years,  death  and  burial, 

121 
leader  of  a  faction  in  Paris, 

118 — 120 
marriage,  99 
quarrels  with  her  son's  tutor 

and  with  Sully,  115,  116 
wooed  by  the  Prince  de  Cond6, 

95—99 
Charlotte  de,  Countess  of  Derby 
("  the  Lady  of  Lathom  "), 
action    on    the    outbreak    of 
civil  war,  136,  137 


330 


INDEX 


La  Tremoille — continued 

Charlotte  de,  Countess  of  Derby 
— continued. 

at  Knowsley  during  the  Com- 
monwealth, 165 

betrayal  by  Christian  and 
return  to  England,  164,  165 

biographies  of  and  literary 
allusions  to,  xi.  &  n.  2, 122  & 
n.,  126  n.,  164 

birth,  descent  and  upbringing, 
113,  123 — 126,  127,  130  w. 

careers  of  her  younger  sons, 
167 

correspondence  with  her 
sister-in-law,  128,  129,  151, 
^55.  157  sqq.,  165—167, 
168,  196 

death  at  Knowsley,  171 

defends  Lathom  House,  98, 
122,  142 — 148 

early  married  life  in  England, 
130—132 

hears  of  her  husband's  execu- 
tion, 161,  164  n. 

her  will  and  burial,  171,  172 

holds  out  in  Isle  of  Man 
against  the  Parliament,  163 

in  London  after  the  Restora- 
tion, 169 — 171 

in  Scotland,  159 

life  at  court,  135 

life  in  the  Isle  of  Man,  151 — 

165 
marriages  of  her  daughters, 

166 
motherhood,  134,  135 
negotiates    with    parliamen- 
tarian envoys,  141 
petitions  Parliament  on  her 

husband's  behalf,  153 — 156 
prepares    for    the    siege    of 

Lathom  House,  138,  139 
quarrels  with  her  eldest  son, 

152,  153,  167,  168 
receives  Rupert  at  Lathom, 

149,  150,  260 


receives  the  Prince  de  Tarente 

in  London,  177 
sends   her    son   Edmund   to 

France,  167,  171 
suitors  and  marriage  to  Lord 

Strange,  128,  129,  130 
visits  Charles  I.  at  Hampton 

Court,  154 
visits  Holland,  134 
writes  to  Prince  Rupert,  137, 

143.  144 
EHzabeth    de,    Duke    Claude's 

daughter,  113,  125 
Elizabeth    de,     Duke    Henry's 

daughter,  174 
Frederic  de,   Comte  de  Laval, 

113. 126, 133, 134. 153  &«.,  155 
Frederic    Guillaume    de.    Abbe 

de    Sainte- Croix,    later    lieu- 
tenant-general, 202  &  «.,  260 

&  n.  1 
Georges  de,  Seigneur  de  Craon, 

42  sqq. 
Georges  de.   Seigneur  de   Jon- 

velle,  52,  84 
Guillaume      de,      brother       of 

Seigneur  Guy,  6,  7,  8,  11 
Henriette  de,  202 
Jacqueline  de,  84 
Jacques  de,  52 
Jean   de.   Archbishop  of  Auch 

and  cardinal,  52,  78,  82 
Joseph  Emmanuel  de.  Abbe  de 

Noirmoustier    and    cardinal, 

216,  225,  255,  256 
Louis  Maurice,  Comte  de  Laval, 

174 
Louis  Stanislas  Kotzka,  Prince 

de,  274  &  n.  *,  275,  277  &  w.  ^ 

288,  294  sqq..  313,  314 
Marie  Anne  de,   Princesse  des 

Ursins.        See       Talleyrand, 

Marie  Anne  de. 
Marie  Charlotte,  174  &  wn.  2  &  ^, 

193,  198 
Marie  Sylvie  Brabantine,  202 
Robert,  212,  215 


INDEX 


331 


Lausanne,  291 
Laval, 

Anne    de,   wife    of    Francis, 
Comte  de  La  Tremoille,  87, 
155  n.  2,  198,  199  n.  1 
chateau  of,  vi.,  viii.,  299,  308, 

311 

Counts  of,  257  and  passim 

estates  of,  155,  300,  302,  303 

Frederic,  Count  of.  See  La 
Tremoille. 

Louis  Maurice,  Count  of.     See 
La  Tremoille. 
Lavallee,  Pean  de,  43,  44 
La  Vendee,  viii.,  276,  277,  283,  295, 

299,  300.  312,  313,  314 
Lear,  King,  175 
Le  Brun,  268 
Leghorn,  296 
Legoix,  family  of,  18 
Le  Mans,  Battle  of,  306,  307 
Leopold,  Emperor,  227 
Le  Sage,  180 

Lescure,  Commander  of  Royalists 
in  La  Vendee,  300  n.,  301  &  n.  ^ 
Lespinasse,  Mdlle.  de,  265 
Les  Rochers,  203,  205,  207 
Leyden,  126,  149 
Liege,  17,  45,  175 
Limburg,  250,  251 
Lini^res,  ch§.teau,  68 
Liris,  R.,  62 
Liverpool,  158 
Loches,  chateau,  75  n. 
Lodi, 

battle,  290,  291 

town,  88,  89 
Loire,  R.,  25,  30,  251 

crossing  and  recrossing  of,  by 
the  Royalist  rebels  in  1793, 
300—302,  303,  306,  307 

Joan  of  Arc's  victories  on,  31, 
32.  35 
Longueville, 

Due  de,  174 

Duchesse  de,  121,  185  &  n.  * 
L'Orme,  PhiUbert  de,  133 


Lorraine, 

Duke  of,  Ren6  II.     See  Ren6. 
province,  46,  47,  264,  265,  269 
the  maid  of,  30 
Loudun,  90,  119,  257 
Louis  VII.,  King  of  France,  2 
Louis  IX.,  St.,  King  of  France,  2,  6 
Louis  XI.,  King  of  France,  38 
as  Dauphin,  39,  40,  67 
as    King.    44    sqq.,    53    sqq., 
66  n.,  67 
Louis  XII.,  King  of  France, 

as  Due  d'Orleans,  59,  60,  66, 

67,  80,  79 
as  King,  61  n.,  67  sqq. 
Louis  XIII.,  King  of  France,  119, 

173 
Louis  XIV.,  King  of  France,  38, 

173,  195,  197,  198,  214,  219,  222, 

224,  225,  227,  228,  230  sqq.,  237, 

239   sqq.,    248    sqq.,    253,    254, 

258 
Louis  XV.,  King  of  France,  261, 

263,  264,  267 
Louis  XVI.,  King  of  France,  279, 

286,  287 
Louis    XVI 1 1.,    King   of   France, 

289  n.  1,  312,  314 
Louis,  Dauphin,  died  1415.     See 

Guyenne,  Due  de. 
Louis  de  La  Tremoille.     See  La 

Tremoille. 
Louis,    Due   d'Orleans.     See   Or- 
leans. 
Louise    de    Coetivy,    mother    of 

Francis,  Comte  de  La  Tremoille, 

82,  83  n.  1 
Louise  de  Coligny,  x.  &  n.  ^  106 

&n. 8,  iio&w.  1,  III  &nn.  1  Sc"^, 

112,  113,  123,  124 
Louise     Julienne,     William     the 

Silent's  daughter,  137  n. 
Louise  of  Savoy,  52,  83  n.  ^  84 
Louville,  Marquis  of,  234,  236 
Luci.     See  Ferrand,  Mdlle. 
Lude,  the  Count  of,  92 
Lun^ville,  265 


332 


INDEX 


Luxembourg,  187,  188,  190,  270, 

271,  274 
Lyons,  74,  75,  90,  114  &  m.  2,  254 
Lys-Saint-Georges,  castle  of,  75 


Macaulay,  235 

Mack,  General,  293 

Maestro,  217 

Maine,  298,  300 

Maine-et-Loire,  x. 

Maintenon,      Mme.      de.       See 
Aubigne,  Fran9oise  de. 

Malaquais,  Quai,  257 

Malo,  Andrea  di,  90 

Malplaquet,  Battle  of,  249,  258 

Man,  the  Isle  of,  129,  137,  138,  143, 
150,  151,  1565^^.,  163,  164,  165, 
168 

Manchester,  136,  138,  140,  147 

Mansourah,  Battle  of,  2 — 12 

Mantua,  284.  See  Gonzaga,  Mar- 
quis of. 

Marans,  55  n.  ^,  105 

Marcellus,  theatre  of,  220 

Marchegay,  Paul,  x. 

Marguerite  d'Amboise,  Comtesse 
de  La  Tremoille,  49 

Marguerite  de  Valois.     See  Valois. 

Maria  Fagniani,  Comtess  of  Yar- 
mouth, 284 

Maria  Feodorovna,  Empress  of 
Russia,  292 

Marie  Adelaide,  Duchess  of  Bur- 
gundy, 232,  233,  234 

Marie  Antoinette,  273,  278 — 
281 

Marie  de  Cleves,  95 

Marie  Jablonowski.  See  Talmond, 
Princesse  de. 

Marie  de  La  Tour  d'Auvergne. 
See  La  Tremoille,  Duchess  of. 

Marie  de  Montauban,  wife  of 
Georges  de  Craon,  49 

Marie  de  Sully.     See  Sully. 

Marie  Leczinski,  Queen  of  France, 
261,  271 


Marie  Louise,  Queen  of  Spain,  232 

sqq.,  237,  241,  242,  244,  246,  248, 

251,  252 
Marignano,  Battle  of,  81 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  248 
Marlet,  Leon,  xi.,  122  &  w.,  126  «. 
Marly,  chMeau,  vi.,  243,  248,  254 
Marsille,  257  «.  2 
Marston  Moor,  Battle  of,  139  n., 

150 
Martindale  Castle,  122 
Mary  of  Burgundy,  daughter  of 

Charles  the  Rash,  47  n. 
Mary  Stuart,  Princess  of  Orange, 

177,  192,  194 
Mary  Tudor,  Queen  of  France,  80 

130  w.,  131 
Mathelyn,  14 
Mauleon,  55  n.  1,  257  n.  2 
Maurepas,  264,  272 
Maurice, 

Elector  of  Saxony,  no  n. 
of  Nassau.     See  Nassau. 
Maximilian,  Emperor, 

as  Archduke  of  Austria,  47  n., 

59 
as  Emperor,  71 
Maximilien  de  Bethune,  Marquis 

de  Rosny.     See  Bethune. 
Mayenne, 

Duke  of,  105 

Georges  de  Craon's  estates  in, 
49 
Mayerne,  Sir  Theodore  Turquet  de, 

159  &  n. 
Mazarin,   Cardinal,  vi.,    184  sqq., 

190,  192,  194  sqq. 
Medicis,   Catherine   de,    105   n.^, 
116,  133 
descent  from  Georges  de  La 
Tremoille,  42,  43  n. 
Medicis,  Marie  de,  in,  116,  118, 

119,  128 
Melle, 

bishopric  of,  26  n. 
fortress  of,  93 
Melun,  22 


INDEX 


333 


Mercceur,  Duke  of,  95 

Meun,  castle,  28 

Michelet,  80,  86 

Milan,  61,  71,  78,  79,  81,  119 

duchy  of,  61,  63,  70,  71,  88 

duke  of,  61,  70 
Mirabello, 

chateau,  88 

park,  89 
Miranda,  Francisco  di,  90 
Modena,    Queen   of    England,    in 

exile,  222,  260 
MoliSre,  206 
Molyneux,  Lord,  137 
Monaco,  Prince  of,  Ambassador  at 

Rome,  225,  226 
Monk,  General,  169 
Montagu,  George,  271 
Montaigne,  127  «. 
Montargis,  37 
Montauban,  109 
Mont  Cenis,  79 
Montagu,  chateau,  80 
Montereau,  27  n.  1,  121 
Montespan,  Mme.  de,  265 
Montesquieu,  261,  264,  266 
Montfort,  257  n.  ^ 
Montmorency, 

Anne  de,  84,  93,  130  n. 

Charlotte  de,  Princesse  de 
Cond6,  117,  118 

Henry  de,  Mar6chal  Damville, 
117  n.  2 

house  of,  vi. 

Jeanne  de,   Duchesse  de  La 
Tr6moille,  93,  94,  96  sqq., 
103  &  n.,  116,  130  n. 
Montpellier,  100,  109 
Montpensier, 

Anne  de,  "  the  Great  Made- 
moiselle," 185  &  n.  2,  186, 
187,  188 

castle  of,  57,  58 

Counts  of,  57,  63 

Dukes  of.     See  Bourbon. 
Montr6sor,  chateau,  37 
Morat,  Battle  of,  46 


Morel,  Mnje.  de,  114  n. 

Moret,  117 

Mortara,  72 

Moussy,  Regnaud  de,  82 

Munster, 

Bishop,  199 

Council,  155 
Musgrave,  Sir  Philip,  164,  165 


Nancy,  Battle  of,  45,  47,  48 
Nantes,  59,  60,  70,  303 

Edict  of,  107,  108,  109 
pacification  of,  104 
revocation  of  Edict,  94,  211, 
258 
Nantwich,  Battle  of,  168 
Naples,  2,  62,  63,  70,  288,  289,  296 
Bay  of,  62 
crown  of  claimed  by, 

Charles    VIIL,     King     of 
France,  and  his  successor, 
61,  155  n.  2 
Dukes  of  La  Tr6moille  and 
Princes  of   Tarente,  155 
&  n.  2,  198,  288 
Kings  of,  61,  87,  289,  293,  296 
Queens  of,  10,  289,  292,  296 
state  of,  75,  76,  79 
Napoleon,  ix.,  5,  90,  91,  289  n.  ^ 

297,  312,  314 
Nassau, 

Charlotte  Brabantine, 
Duchesse  de  La  Tremoille, 
X.  &  n.  3,  109  sqq.,  121  sqq., 
128  sqq.,  133,  137  n.,  176  «. » 
Frederick   Henry,    Prince   of 
Orange,  176  &  n.^,  177,  180 
182,  183 
Henry,  Count  of,  179 
house  of,  vi. 
Louisa  Henrietta  of,  177,  181, 

182,  183 
Maurice,    Prince   of   Orange, 

no,  125 
William  II.,  Prince  of  Orange, 
177/  178,  180 


334 


INDEX 


Nassau — continued. 

William  III., Prince  of  Orange. 
See  William  III.,  King  of 
England. 
Navona,  Piazza,  220  &  n.  ^ 
Neufchatel,  lake  of,  46 
Neuve-des-Capucins,  Rue,  281 
Nevers,  Comte  de.     See  John  the 

Fearless,  Duke  of  Burgundy. 
Newcastle,  153 
Nice,  278 

Nicopolis,  Battle  of,  12,  13,  14 
Noailles, 

Adrien  Maurice  de,  223 
La  Marechale   de,   223,  225, 
240 
Noirmoustier, 

Abbe  de.     See  La  Tremoille, 

Joseph  Emmanuel. 
Antoine    Francois,    Due    de, 

212,  215,  253,  255,  256 
Claude,  Baron  de,  212,  213 
Frangois,    Marquis    de,    212, 

214 
Louis,  Due  de,  197,  212,  213 
Louis,  Marquis  de,  212 
Novara,  72,  73,  75,  78,  80 


Odescalchi,  Don  Livio,  224 

Oldenburg,  211 

Oldenzeel,  no 

Olonne,  Georges,  Comte  d',  212, 

213 
Olyferne,  Duke  of,  8 
Orange, 

Maurice,      Prince      of.      See 
Nassau. 

William    the    Silent,    Prince 
of.     See  William. 

William  VIL,  Prince  of,  49 
Orbitello,  296 
Orleans, 

Anne  d',  233 

Charles,  Due   d',  16,  19,  21, 

23 
family  of,  67 


Gaston,  Ducd',  185.  186,  188, 

189,  190 
Joan  of  Arc's  relief  of,  31,  186 
Philippe,    Due  d',  227,   253, 

254 

siege  of,  30 

"  the   Great    Mademoiselle  " 
at,  186 

town  of,  22 
Ormond,  Duke  of,  237 
Ormskirk,  172 
Orpe,  Miss,  133,  134,  154 
Orsini, 

estates  of,  224,  255 

palace  of,  220,  221 

the  house  of.  218  n.  2,  219,  221 
Orsova,  12 
Ostend,  286,  288 
Oudenarde,  Battle  of,  258 


Palatine,    La.     See    Gonzague 
Anne  de. 
Charlotte     Elisabeth,     Prin- 
cesse  de,  254 
Pallavicini,  the,  13 
Palermo,  296 
Paris, 

besieged  by  Huguenots,  106 
besieged  by  Joan  of  Arc,  34 
taken  by  Charles  VIL,  38 
threatened    by    the    English 
and  defended  by  La  Tre- 
moille, 87 
Parma, 

Duke  of,  105,  106 

Princess     of.      See    Farnese, 

Elizabeth, 
town  of,  63 
Pasquino, 

palace,    221,    222,    224,    225, 

255 
the  tailor,  220 
Pathay,  Battle  of,  32 
Patroclus,  220 

Paul  I.,  Emperor  of  Russia,  292 
&n. 


INDEX 


335 


Pavia, 

Battle  of,  89,  90 
campaign  of,  88 
siege  of,  88,  89 
town  of,  62,  88,  90 
Peel  Castle,  164 
P6ronne,  Louis  XI.  taken  prisoner 

at,  45 
Pescara,  General,  88 
"  Peveril  of  the  Peak,"  xi.,  122, 

164 
Philip  II.,  King  of  Spain,  95,  226, 

227 
Philip  III.,  King  of  Spain,  119 
Philip  IV.,    King  of  Spain,   228, 
229,  233  sqq.,  241,  249,  244,  246 
sqq. 
Philip  the  Bold.     See  Burgundy, 

Dukes  of. 
Piacenza,  63 
Pibrac,  126,  136 
Picard,  120  n. 
Picquigny,  Treaty  of,  45 
Piennes, 

Due  de,  286 
Duchesse  de,  285,  286 
Pierre  Fort,  fortress,  46 
Pierrepont,    Henry,    Marquis    of 

Dorchester,  166 
Pisa,  63 

Pisani,  Marquis  de,  114,  115,  116 
Plessis,  College  of,  274 
Plessis-du-Parc,  48 
Plessis-les-Tours,  48  n.,  56 
Plessis-Mornay,  M.  du,  99,  113 
Plombieres,  279 
Poggibonsi,  63 
Poitiers, 

Battle,  3 

Bishop.     See    1.2l    Tr6moille, 

Jean, 
town,  xi.,  59,  82,  91,  loi  n.  2, 

105 
Poitou,  xii.,  I,  3,  26,  28,  39,  40, 

55  n.  1,  60,  91,  93,  95,  107,  io8, 

i73>  185,  195,  197 
Pontarlier,  46 


Portland, 

Duke  of,  295 

Earl  of,  211 
Portocarrero,  Cardinal,  223,  228 

238 
Portugal,  70 
Praguerie,  the,  39  &  n. 
Puisaye,  Comte  de,  313 
Pyrenees,  231 

Treaty  of,  197 

QuEENSBERRY,    the    Marquis    of, 

283,  284  n.  1 
Quiberon,  313 

Radetzky,  General,  290,  291 

Radzivill,  180  &  w. 

Rais,  Gille  de,  16,  17,  25 

Rambouillet, 

Hotel  de,  204,  205,  216,  221 
Marquise  de,  114,  n6 
Salon  de,  114  &  «.  2 

Reaux,  Tallemant  des,  115  &  «.  », 

133 
Regnault.     See     Chartres,     R6g- 
nault  de,  Archbishop  of  Reims. 
Reims,  13 

Charles     VII.    crowned    at, 
25  n.,  33 
Ren6  II.,  Duke  of  Lorraine,  46, 

47.  48 
Rennes,  204,  257  n.  2,  308,  309,  310 
Retz,  Cardinal  de,  187,  215 
Rhimbergue,  180 
Rhodes, 

Grand  Prior  of,  14 

Seigneur  Guy  dies  at,  14 
Richard  II.,  King  of  England,  11 
Richelieu, 

Cardinal,  vi.,  114,  132,  274 

Due  de,  285 
Richemont,  Count  of,  23,  27  &  n. 

28,  29,  32  &  n.  1,  37,  38,  39 
Richmond,  283,  286,  298 
Rigby,  Colonel,  139,  145,  146,  147, 

148,  156 
Robespierre,  313 


336 


INDEX 


Rocroy,  191 

Rohan, 

house  of,  185 
Mdlle.  de,  181 
Rome,  62,  63,  76,  78 

Duke  Charles  Bretagne  de  La 

Tr^moille  at,  284,  293,  295 

La  Princesse  de  Talmond  at, 

270 
La  Princesse  des  Ursins  re- 
sides at,   217 — 233,   255 — 
256 
Rosny,  Marquis  de.     See  B6thune, 

Maximilien. 
Rossignol,  General,  308,  309,  310 
Rouen,  36,  106 
Rouhet,  94 
Roussillon,  245 
Royan,   Yolande   Julie,  Marquise 

de,  212,  215 
Ruitz,  Marshal,  291 
Rupa,     Helen     de.     See     Derby, 

Countess  of. 
Rupert,  Prince,  137  &  w.,  143,  144, 

148,  149,  150,  181,  260 
Rushen,  Castle  of,  157,  161,  164 
Rutter,  the  Rev.  Mr,,  147, 152, 163 
Ruvigny,  Henri  de.  Lord  Galway, 

247  n.  2 
Ryswick,  Treaty  of,  199,  214,  123 

St.  Angelo,  Bridge  of,  219 
St.  Antoine, 

Battle  of  the  Gate  of,   186, 
187,  190 

Gate,  197 

Rue,  20 
St.  Aubin-du-Cormier,   Battle  of, 

60,  66,  74 
St.  Bartholomew,  massacre,  now., 

Ill  n.  2 
St.  Cloud,  187,  188 
St.  Cyr,  254 
St.  Denis, 

cathedral,  3 

fair,  23 

faubourg,  187 


St.  Didier,  Marie  Virginie,  Com- 
tesse  de,  second  wife  of  Duke 
Charles  Bretagne  de  La  Tr6- 
moille,  314 

St.  Dominique,  Rue,  265 

St.  Florent,  301 

St.  Germain,  114,  115,  117,  222 
231,  260,  265 

St.  Honore,  Gate,  Joan  of  Arc  at, 

34 
St.  Jacques  Tower,  18,  21 
St.   James's   Palace,    Court,    131 

286 
St.  Jean  d'Ang61y,  loi,  102,  103 

&  n. 
St.  John's,  Prior  of,  85 
St.  Joseph,  Convent  of,  265,  267 
St.  Laon  de  Cursay,  57 
St.  Malo,  98,  304 
St.  Maur-les-Fosses,  116 
St.  Medard,  chapel,  the  La  Tre- 

moille  burying  place,  57 
Saint  Paul,  Hotel  de,  13 
St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  11,  220 
St.  Petersburg,  292,  314 
St.  Pierre  le  Moustier,  35 
St.  Simon,  229  &  n.  ^  234,  239, 

240,  243,  244 
St.  Yon,  family  of,  18 
Sainte-Beuve,  214,  242,  256 
Sainte-Croix,   the  Abbe  de.     See 

"Ldi.    Tremoille,    Frederic    Guil- 

laume. 
Sainte-Marthe, 
Louis  de,  viii. 
Pierre  Scevole  de,  ix. 
Scevole  de,  viii. 
Sainte  Menehould,  119 
Saintes,  loi 
Saintonge,  55  n.  1,  60,  91,  loi  w.  2, 

186 
Salm,  Princesse  de,  314  n. 
San  Giovanni,  fort,  62,  65 
Sand,  Georges,  121 
Saracens,  the,  2,  7,  8,  9 
Sarragossa,  237 
Sarzana,  63,  64 


INDEX 


337 


Sauves,  Charlotte  de  SemblaiKjay, 
Mme.  de,  wife  of  Fran9ois  de 
Noirmoustier,  214,  215 
Savoie,  Madeleine  de,  130 
Savonarola,  63 
Savoy,  277,  278 

Dowager  Duchess  of,  236 
Victor    Amadeus,    Duke    of, 
227,  232,  233 
Saxe,  the  Chevalier  de,  293,  295 
Saxe  Weimar,  Bernard  of,  Duke  of 

Jena,  174,  198 
Scarron,     Mme.      See     Aubign6, 

Fran9oise  de. 
Schomberg,  Gaspard  de,  108 
Scone,  160 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  xi.,  122,  164 
Sedan, 126 

Selwyn,  George,  284  n. 
Serrant, 

chateau,  x.,  314 

Louis    Charles,    Due    de   La 

Tr6moille,  buried  at,  57 
Valentine,  Comtesse  de.     See 
Walsh. 
Sesia,  R.,  72 
S6vign6,  Mme.  de,  x.  &  n.  2,  183, 

203  sqq.,  218 
Sforza,  Ludovico  {II  Moro),  61 
as  Duke  of  Milan,  63,  71  sqq., 
78 
Shrewsbury,  168 
Sicily, 

King  of,  70 
Queen  of,  30 
Sidonie,  Mdlle.,  305 
Sienna,  63 

Sigismund,  King  of  Hungary,  11, 12 
Sobieski, 

Clementine,  wife  of  the  Old 

Pretender,  255,  256,  261 
house  of,  vi.,  271 
Jean,  255 
Soissons,  Comte  de,  102 
Solms,    Emilie    of,    Princess    of 

Orange,  182,  192 
Somerset  House,  179 

C.R. 


Somme,  R.,  45 

Sophie,   Countess   Bentinck.     See 

Bentinck. 
Sorbonne,  the,  274 
Sorel,  Agnes,  38 
Spa,  192,  285 
Spar,  Baron,  193 
Spoleto,  218 
Stanislas,  King  of  Poland,  260  w.  ^ 

264,  265 
Stanleys,  the,  vi.,  130 

Amelia,  134  n.,  154,  158,  159, 

162  n.  1,  166,  167 
Catherine,  134  &  n.,  154,  158, 

159,  162  n.  ^  166 
Charlotte,  134  &  w.  1 
Earls  of  Derby.     See  Derby. 
Edward,  134  «.,  162,  167,  169, 

171 
Henrietta  Maria,  134  n.,  161, 

162,  166 
Henry  Frederic,  134  «. 
James,  134  n. 
Papers,  134  n.,  152  &  n. 
William,  134  w.,  162,  167,  169, 
170 
Stenay,  191 
Stockport,  148 
Stofflet,  305,  306 
Strafford,  Earl  of,  156,  166 
Strange.     See  Derby,  Earls  of,  and 
La  Tremoille,  Charlotte,  Lady 
Strange. 
Strasbourg.     See    La    Tr6moille, 
Frederic  Guillaume,  Canon  of, 
and  Charles  Auguste,  Dean  of. 
Stuart, 

Elizabeth,  Queen  of  Bohemia, 
129  &  n.,  137  n.,  149,  180, 

194 
Prince  Charles   Edward,  261 

sqq. 
Sully,  chateau,  3,  22,  24,  32,  35,  41, 

112 
Comte  de,  6,  8,  9 
Due  de.     See  B6thune,  Maxi- 

milien. 


338 


INDEX 


Sully — continued. 

Marie  de.  Dame  de  La  Tr6- 
moille,  3,  14,  15,  17 
Susa,  pass  of,  79 
Switzerland,  70 
Swiss  Cantons,  46 

mercenaries,   64,   65,   71,   72, 
73,  79.  81 


Tabouret,  honour  of  occupying, 
accorded  to  La  Tremoille  prin- 
cesses, 2,  III,  198 
Taillebourg,  castle,  95,  97,  98,  99, 
186 
Counts  of, 

Charles  Belgique,  257  w.  ^ 

Charles  de  Coetivy,  83  n.  ^ 

Talbot,    Richard,    Earl    of    Tyr- 

connel,  222 
Talleyrand, 

Adrien    Blaise    de.    Prince    de 

Chalais,  first  husband  of  La 

Princesse  des  Ursins,  216 

Marie  Anne  de,   Princesse  des 

Ursins, 

authorities  for  the  life  of,  214 

n. 
builds  chateau  on  the  Loire, 

251 

character  of  her  relations  with 
the  King  and  Queen  of 
Spain,  234,  235,  236,  238 

coldly  received  by  Louis  XIV., 
leaves  France,  resides  at 
Genoa,  254 

conducts  Marie  Louise  to 
Spain,  233,  234 

contributes  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Bourbons  on 
the  Spanish  throne,  214, 
228,  230,  231,  238 

correspondence  of,  xi. 

corresponds  with. 

Lord  Bolingbroke,  250,  251 
Mme.  de  Maintenon,  245, 
246,  248 


Mme.  de  Noailles,  223,  225, 
232,  234,  245 
descent,  parentage  and  birth, 

212,  214,  215 

driven  from  Spain  by  the  new 
Queen,  Elizabeth,  251 — 253 

early  married  life  in  Paris,  216 

end  of  her  first  period  of  power 
and  residence  at  Versailles, 
240 — 244 

endeavours  to  obtain  inclu- 
sion in  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht,  250 — 251 

events  leading  to  her  fall,  238, 
240 

excites  the  jealousy  of  minis- 
ters and  ambassadors  at 
Madrid,  238 

her  boundless  ambition,  218, 
250,  251 

her  policy  saves  Spain  for 
the  Bourbons,  245 

her  Roman  Salon,  219,  221, 
222 

importance  of,  in  her  family 
and  in   European  history, 

213,  214,  223,  226,  231 

is  present  at  State  councils, 

237 

lawsuit  with  her  second  hus- 
band's heir,  224 

lives  in  Italy,  moves  in 
Roman  society,  217 

marriages,  216,  218,  219 

relations  with  the  French 
ambassadors  at  Rome,  225, 
226 

return  to  Spain,  244 

returns  to  Rome,  figures  at 
the  court  of  the  Old  Pre- 
tender, dies  at  Rome,  her 
will,  255,  256,  260 

schemes  to  marry  the  King  of 
Spain  to  Marie  Louise  of 
Savoy,  and  to  get  herself 
appointed  Camerara  Major, 
232,  233 


INDEX 


339 


Talleyrand — continued. 
Marie  Anne  de — continued. 
unofficial     representative    of 
France  at  Rome,  223,  224 
visits  France,  222,  223,  260 
P^rigord,  Archambauld  de,  316 
the  Abbe,  216  n.^ 
Talmond, 
castle  of,  105 
estates  of,  49,  55  «.  * 
Princes  of, 

Anne  Charles  Fr6d6ric,  260  & 

n.  1,  261,  263,  264,  270 
Antoine  Philippe,  298,  313 
at  college,  274 
commands      in      Royalist 

army,  299 
distinguished  at  battles  of 
Dol  and  Le  Mans,   306, 

307 

distinguished  in  defence  of 
Laval,  302,  303 

enters  the  army,  275 

expedition    to    the    coast, 
305  &  n..  306 

fondness  for  pleasure,  276 

imprisonment  and  escape, 
298 — 299 

imprisonment,     trial     and 
death,  308 — 311 

in  family  group,  274  &  w.  ^ 

joins  the  Royalists  in  the 
West,  298—308 

leaves  the  Vendean  army, 
308 

organises   the   crossing   of 
the  Loire,  300,  302 

parts    from    his    mistress. 
Lady  Brighton,  298 

receives    mysterious    mes- 
sage from,  304 

visits    England,    282,    283, 
298,     303,    and    escorts 
his  sister-in-law  to  Rich- 
mond, 282,  283,  298 
Charles,   59,   78,  80,  81,  82, 

83  «.^ 


Francis.     See   La    Tremoille 

Count  of. 
Fr6d6ric  Guillaume,  260  &n.^. 
Leopold,  312 

Louis     Stanislas,     Duke     of 
Chatellerault,  260  n.  * 
Princesses  of, 

F61icie.      See  Durfort  Duras* 
Henriette.     See  Argouges. 
Marie  Jablonowski,  257 — 272 
death    and  testament   de- 
scribed    by     Mme,     du 
Deffand,  272 
liaison  with  Prince  Charles 

Edward,  261 — 270 
marries  Prince  de  Talmond, 

261 
visited  by  Horace  Walpole, 
271 
Taranto  or  Tarente, 
Princes  of,  257  n. 

claim  the  crown  of  Naples,  2, 

87, 198, 199,  288,  289  &  n. 
Henry  Charles,  Due  de  La 
Tremoille,  but  better 
known  as  le  Prince  de 
Tarente,  174,  199,  203, 
215,  257,  258,  260  &  n.  1, 
261,  277  n. 
arrest,   imprisonment   and 

release,  195,  196 
at  the  Court  of  the  Nether- 
lands, 177 
becomes  Due  de  La  Tre- 
moille during  his  father's 
lifetime,  175,  195 
birth  and  upbringing,  175, 

176 
commands   in   the   Thirty 

Years'  War,  180,  181 
death  at  Thouars,  202 
engages  in  the  Fronde,  184 

sqq. 
family  controversies  conse- 
quent on  his  return  to 
the  Catholic  Church,  201, 
202 


340 


INDEX 


Taranto  or  Tarente — continued. 
Princes  of — continued. 

Henry   Charles,   Due  de  La 

Tremoille — continued. 
fights  in  the  Battle  of  the 

Porte  St.  Antoine,  i88— 

190 
first  affair  of  honour,  179 
friendship    with    the    Due 

d'Enghien,     later     "  the 

Great  Cond6,"  176,  184, 

187 
granted  the  presidency  of 

the  Breton  estates,  198 
invested  with  the  Order  of 

the  Garter  by  Charles  II., 

192,  195,  260 
marries    Emilie    of    Hesse 

Cassel,  183,  184 
Memoires,   175   &  n.,   179, 

182,  184,  189,  190 
negotiates  with  Cromwell, 

192,  193 
proposals  of  marriage,  181 
received  by  the  King  and 

Queen  at  Toulouse,   197 
residence  in  Holland,  192 — 

194 
resides  at  Thouars,  200 
resigns  his  command,  192 
returns  to  France,  194 
runs  away  from  home,  176 
second  affair  of  honour,  180 
shipwreck,  178 
summoned    to    France    by 

his  mother's  death,  199 
visit  to  Hesse  Cassel  and 

third  residence  in   Hol- 
land, 199 
visits    London,    151,    177, 

178,  179 
title  confirmed  by  Louis  XIV., 

198 
Emmanuelle     de     Chitillon, 
Princess  of, 
emigrates  to  England,  283. 

298 


escapes  from  the  September 

massacres,  282 
escapes  from  the  Tuileries  on 
the  loth  of  August,  1792, 
280,  281 
her  Souvenirs,  275,  279,  284 
in  the  Abbaye  prison,  281 
life  in  Russia,  and  death  at 

St.  Petersburg,  291,  292 
lives  at  Richmond,  283,  284 
marries     Charles     Bretagne, 
Prince  de  Tarente,  275  &  «., 
310 
meets  her  husband  in  Eng- 
land, 286,  287 
with  Marie  Antoinette  during 
the  Revolution,  279 — 281 
Taro.  R.,  65 

Teligny,  Charles  de,  no  w.,  iii  w.  2 
Tencin,  the  Abbe  de,  255 
Themistocles,  236 
Thibert,  family  of,  18 
Thou,  President  de,  108 
Tiber,  R.,  219 
Tirechappe,  Rue,  274 
Toledo,    Bishop    of.     See    Porto- 

carrero,  Cardinal. 
Tongres,  Battle  of,  17 
Tonnerre,    Countess    of.     See    He 

Bouchard,  Catherine  de  V. 
Torcy,  Marquis  de,  223,  232,  250, 

254 
Toulouse,  197,  241 
Touraine,  38,  44,  56,  75  n.  2,  251 
Tournon,  Rue  de,  187 
Tours,  105 

Tourzel,  Pauline  de,  281 
Trieste,  296 
Trivulzio,  70,  71,  72,  78,  79  n.  », 

80,  81 
Troyes, 

town  of,  33,  69,  197 
Treaty  of,  25 
Tuileries,  palace,  133, 187,  279,280 
Tunis,  King  of,  9 
Turenne,  General,  1 53, 187, 188, 190 
Turin,  233,  278,  279,  291 


INDEX 


341 


Tyburn,  171 
Tynemouth,  137 
Tyrol,  291 

Unguad,  Elizabeth  von,  209 
Ursins,     La     Princesse     de.     See 

Talleyrand,  Marie  Anne  de. 
Utrecht,  Treaty  of,  199,  250,  255 

Valentinois, 

lands  of,  69 

Louise  d'Albret,  Duchesse  de. 
See  Albret. 
Val^ry,  121 

Valli^re,  la  Duchesse  de,  281,  292 
Valois, 

Francis,  Duke  of.     See  Fran- 
cis I.,  King  of  France. 

Marguerite  de,  divorced  wife 
of  Henry  IV.,  116,  214,  215 
Vannes,  37 

Vasse,  Mme.  de,  265,  269 
Vendome, 

Count  of,  23 

Duke  of,  249 
Venice, 

city  of,  113,  126,  217,  291 

state  of,  63,  70 
Verdun,  46 
Vere, 

Earl  of  Oxford,  130  n. 

Elizabeth,  iin. 
Vernet,  Camus  de,  29 
Versailles,  222,  223,  238,  241,  242, 

243,  248,  252,  254,  273 
Vichy,  222 

Vienna,  210,  285,  288,  291,  294 
Vigevano,  71 
Vigo  Bay,  242  n. 
Villafranca,  233 
Vincennes,  21,  22,  23,  120,  264 
Visconti, 

Gal6as,  Duke  of  Milan,  10 

Galeazzo,  Duke  of  Milan,  61, 
63  n.,  75 

Valentine,  61  &  n. 


Vitr6,  203,  206,  257  «.  2,  308, 

310 
Voltaire,  261 

Wagram,  Battle  of,  289  m.* 

Walkinshaw,  Miss,  270 

Walpole,  Horace,  130  n.,  270,  271, 

272 
Walsh, 

family  of,  314 

Josephine  Eugenie  Valentine, 
Comtesse   de   Serrant  and 
Duchesse  de  La  Tremoille, 
X.,  314,  315,  316 
Warrington,  136 
Waterloo,  Battle  of,  81,  314 
Wentworth,  William,  166 
Weser,  R.,  210 
Westphalia,  Treaty  of,  199 
Whitehall,  178,  179 
Wigan,  140,  161 
WiUiam  III.,  King  of  England, 
as  King  of  England,  227,  231 
as  Prince  of  Orange,  207,  211 
William    the    Silent,     Prince    of 
Orange,  x.,    95,    109,    11 1    n.  ^, 
112  n.'^,   123,   130  n.,   137  n., 
176  n.  8,  183 
Wilson,  Andrew,  64 
Windsor,  262,  265,  266 
Witt,  Mme.  de,  xi.,  122  &  «.,  126  n. 
Woburn  Abbey,  286 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  78 
Worcester,  Battle  of,  161 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  129  n. 
Wykerslooth,  Baroness  of,  314  n. 

Yarmouth,     Countess     of.      See 

Maria  Fagniani. 
Yolande  of  Arragon,  Duchess  of 

Anjou,  30,  37,  38 
York, 

Cardinal,  270 
city,  136,  137,  149 
James,  Duke  of.     See  James 
II.,  King  of  England. 

Zamariel,  126,  127 


BRADBURY,  AGNEW,  &  CO.   LD.,   PRINTERS,   LONDON   AND  TONBRIDGE. 


^  14  DAY  USE 

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